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PODCAST

The Documentary Podcast

BBC World Service

A window into our world, through in-depth storytelling from the BBC. Investigating, reporting and uncovering true stories from everywhere. Award-winning journalism, unheard voices, amazing culture and global issues. From Trump"s new world order, to war in Sudan, to climate issues, The Documentary investigates major global stories.We delve into social media, take you into the minds of the world"s most creative people and explore personal approaches to spirituality. Every week, we also bring together

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

26:30

Flight of the vulture

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/27

With their fearsome talons, acid poo and a penchant for rotting carcasses, the vulture has long been shouldered with associations of death, and dishonour. This taboo often puts them bottom of the list for conservation projects. Conservationist Sacha Dench visits three different vulture species, each with an extraordinary story of persecution and survival. In India, vulture populations collapsed by 99.9%, the sharpest decline of any animal ever recorded. Debbie Pain and Chris Bowden describe the

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19:24

BBC Trending: Can Community Notes clean up your feed?

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/26

Meta has decided to abandon the use of independent fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram in the United States, citing concerns that fact-checkers have become too politically biased. Instead, the company seems to be following X’s lead by shifting to a Community Notes-style system, where users rather than professional fact-checkers and experts correct inaccurate information. But will it lead to more free speech and fewer errors? Or does it open the door for misinformation to spread more easily? How

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28:15

Assignment: Road wars - cycling in Paris

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/25

On 15 Oct 2024, a 27-year-old cyclist was killed in a bike lane in Paris. His name was Paul Varry. He was run over by a car after an argument with a driver. What happened to Paul was extreme, but it resonated with many Parisians. For Paris is undergoing a cycling revolution. The city has created a vast network of bike lanes, introduced new restrictions for cars. The number of cyclists has soared. But there have also been conflicts, as cars, bikes and pedestrians try to navigate the new balance of

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26:29

In the Studio: Mohammad Barrangi

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/24

Iranian-born artist and former Paralympian, Mohammad Barrangi, creates intricate, dreamlike worlds where myth and reality collide. His bold, layered works, murals, prints, and 3D sculptures, fuse Persian aesthetics, ancient symbols, and surreal hybrid creatures, often blending women and animals into fantastical forms. Born without the use of his left arm, Barrangi has developed a distinctive printmaking technique, working on the floor and stabilizing his materials with his feet. For his latest

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59:35

Life in occupied Ukraine

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/23

Russia’s land grab playbook aimed at erasing local identity and russifying “liberated” territories. Three years into the full scale invasion of Ukraine, we ask what life is like in areas under Russian control. We look at “ripe for russification” Crimea, which was annexed 11 years ago, Moscow’s subsequent efforts to assert itself in the separatist East, and the Kremlin’s challenges in subjugating parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. As time passes, the uncertainty over the future of what

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11:57

The Fifth Floor: Syria after Assad

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/22

In December 2024, rebel forces took control in Syria, and former President Bashar al-Assad fled the country. What's happened since? Salma Khattab from BBC Arabic has just come back from Syria and she'll share what she's seen on the ground.Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Alice Gioia, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

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24:08

BBC OS Conversations: Ukraine and three years of war

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/22

The past week has seen talks between the United States and Russia – without Ukraine. This was followed by what seems to be a deepening rift between US President Trump and Ukrainian leader President Zelensky. Meanwhile, the war on the ground grinds on and Russia continues to bombard Ukraine with drones and missiles. We bring together three people who we first met on the programme shortly after the full-scale invasion of the country in 2022. We also hear from two women involved in a project to rebuild

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26:28

Heart and Soul: The only thing certain in life

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/21

In 2019, performer and writer Rochi Rampal found herself attending 10 funerals in one year. To contend with this, she embarked on her own “crash course” to better deal with death, and felt she had found a new attitude to both grief and dying. But Rochi was then given a new diagnosis that forced her to face the threat to her life that she thought she was ready for and the composure she thought she had was shaken. So Rochi wants to begin again and turns to faith and spirituality for answers.

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52:21

Witness History: US Black History Month special

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/20

Extraordinary stories from African-American history, told by the people who were there. We hear tales of bravery and survival against all odds, from the first African-American woman to lead a World War Two battalion, to a Black Panther Party leader in exile, to one man’s incredible escape from the Tulsa Race Massacre. This is a special collection of stories from Witness History, from the BBC World Service, to mark Black History Month in the United States.

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19:30

BBC Trending: Quadrobic panic in Russia over craze to...

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/19

There’s a moral panic in Russia and several former Soviet states about a craze in which teenagers and children dress up as animals and walk on all fours like their favourite animals. In one TikTok video, a group of youngsters are seen scampering across Moscow’s Red Square wearing fox masks and tails. Politicians and religious leaders have warned the trend is a threat to civilised values and a cover for LGBT and western ideology. Legislation is now being considered to ban quadrobics and fine or

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26:36

Assignment: The village that came back from the dead

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/18

In Germany some 300 villages have been destroyed since the Second World War because of the coal that lay beneath them. Villagers have grown up in the knowledge that one day their house will be torn down and generally they’ve accepted the deal on offer: the mine buys their house and they build a new one in a brand-new village. But the demands of climate change and the need to curb CO2 emissions has changed attitudes to fossil fuels. In one region west of Cologne all mining activity will cease by

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26:31

In the Studio: Jennifer Walshe

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/17

Dublin-born Jennifer Walshe is one of the world’s most bold and imaginative contemporary classical composers, and holds the prestigious post of professor of composition at Oxford University. Whether it is Barbie dolls or recipe books, the mundane and strange materials of life are central to Walshe’s work. Now, for the Irish National Opera, she is developing a major new work set on Mars. Walshe’s opera will respond to astrophysics data, Martian meteorites, trashy sci-fi, eco-anxiety in young people,

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52:30

Ukraine: The architects' plan

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/16

As the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine approaches, we explore how the country will be rebuilt, who is coming up with the redesign of damaged cities, and what they might look like in the future. We hear from Lord Norman Foster, the famous British architect who is working on a masterplan for the city of Kharkiv and look at rebuilding projects in the towns near Kyiv. We also ask what lessons can be learnt from other post-war cities, such as Warsaw and Sarajevo.

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26:31

The Fifth Floor: What the US left behind in Afghanistan

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/15

When the American troops withdrew from Afghanistan, they left behind $7bn of military supplies. Where are they now? Hafizullah Maroof from BBC Afghan will take us inside the Kabul flea market that sells second-hand military equipment to the Taliban. Plus: the origin story of capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian sport that blends dancing and martial arts, with Joao Fellet from BBC Brazil and Debula Kemoli from BBC Africa; and how the BBC's Pronunciation unit works with Language Service journalists to make

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23:25

BBC OS Conversations: How AI is changing our lives

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/15

Thousands of people from all around the world came to Paris this week to talk about the impact of artificial intelligence in society. The rapidly growing technology can emulate a human response and has the potential to learn quickly. This allows it to generate images and words, for example, and do a range of jobs faster and cheaper than humans. We hear from three tech entrepreneurs in Ghana, Denmark and Nigeria where AI is making a positive impact on their businesses. There are other industries,

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27:11

Heart and Soul: The caretaker of Bukhara

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/14

Abram Iskhakov is the caretaker of the oldest synagogue in Bukhara, one of the sacred cities of Islam. He is keeper of a Torah inscribed on deer velum and kept safe for 1000 years, or so the story goes. Abram has a powerful voice and recites for us a very special prayer, the Haqqoni, recited at both Jewish and Muslim mourning services in Persian, the language of his city and of Central Asian Jews from Samarkand to the borders of China. What does Haqqoni tell us about the culture of Central Asia? And

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26:07

World Wide Waves '25: Whispers in the air

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/13

The Nuxalk people of Canada's Pacific north-west were almost wiped out by colonisation. Now a community radio station is reviving their language and culture. Nuxalk Radio came on air 10 years ago, inspired by the indigenous Idle No More movement. For World Radio Day 2025, we celebrate this tiny outfit broadcasting from a trailer in the town of Bella Coola, British Columbia, to help an ancient nation recover its mother tongue, supressed for decades by the Canadian government, as well as its identity

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17:30

BBC Trending: Inside Nigeria’s hustle kingdoms

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/12

There is growing concern about cybercrimes like romance scams and sextortion targeting victims around the world. Hiding behind fake or hacked accounts, fraudsters bombard their targets with messages in the hope of extracting money or compromising personal information. In Nigeria, these operations are often honed in dedicated training academies. Known as 'Hustle Kingdoms', they help con artists stay up-to-date with the most effective techniques for carrying out digital fraud. BBC Trending explores

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26:52

Saudi and trans: Eden’s final message

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/11

In March 2023, the "final message" from Eden Knight, a young Saudi transgender woman, went viral on Twitter. It was viewed more than 35 million times. It laid bare Eden’s journey from the US back to Saudi Arabia, and the betrayal she claimed to have suffered. BBC Eye investigates the events that led up to Eden’s death, and those she claims were responsible for her return to Saudi Arabia where she tragically took her own life.

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26:21

In the Studio: Bárbara Sánchez-Kane

The Documentary Podcast ·

2025/02/10

Bárbara Sánchez-Kane is a Mexican fashion designer with eclectic influences - from quinceañera dresses to BDSM harnesses, Jesus's loincloth to lucha libre wrestlers in lingerie. Bárbara revels in the camp and complexity of everyday gender performance. Resisting traditional notions of masculine and feminine, Bárbara creates spaces of tension between these contrasting costumes. We join Bárbara in Mexico City to follow the creation of her next line, from studio sketches to final fittings.

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2,184 results

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