The Documentary Podcast

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, artist Bishwajit Goswami creates a powerful new installation that captures the spirit of his homeland’s rivers, lifelines darkened by pollution, yet still full of energy, beauty, and memory. Reporter Sahar Zand follows Bishwajit as he prepares for a major international exhibition in Paris. From his artist-led rooftop community space in a former tannery, to the crowded, chaotic riverbanks of Dhaka, Sahar traces the origins of a deeply personal artwork shaped by conversations, rituals, and found materials gathered along the river’s edge.

Presenter Elaine Chong speaks to trailblazing Taiwanese artists about exploring history and politics through their work. She hears from the producer Hsin-Mei Cheng of TV series Zero Day in which a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan plays out over 10 episodes. Heavy metal frontman and former politician Freddy Lim explains why he thinks Taiwanese culture is distinctive and how he uses his music to explore his country's and family's history. Award-winning author Yang Shuang-zi and translator Lin King discuss how the historical novel Taiwanese Travelogue, set in the 1930s, resonates with the contemporary Taiwan. And the winner of Ru Paul's Drag Race 2024, Nymphia Wind, explains how Taiwanese culture influences her drag style.

At least 30 million children are out of school in the Middle East and North Africa, with many displaced by conflict in Sudan and Gaza. Today we’ll hear from Hanan Razek and Georgina Pearce, who are part of the team behind Dars Arabic, the BBC show that aims to connect these children with learning tools. Plus, BBC Arabic Xtra's Saif Rebai tells us about the teacher who travels 40km to reach a remote community in the Libyan desert, and Anil Kumar reports for BBC Telugu on the Indian school with just one student. We'll also learn how to say 'Once upon a time' in Turkish, Bengali, Korean and Kazakh, with Osman Kaytazoglu,Shahnewaj Rocky, Yuna Ku and Nurlibek Ukubaev. Presented by Faranak Amidi Produced by Alice Gioia, Hannah Dean and Caroline Ferguson (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

***Contains upsetting content about suicide*** Hundreds of parents who believe social media played a part in the death of their children gathered in New York recently. Standing outside the offices of Meta, owners of Facebook and Instagram, they had a simple demand. Protect our children. Showing incredible bravery, three mothers who have lost their sons tell us about their boys and what happened to them. If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, you could speak to a health professional, or an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide. www.befrienders.org In the UK a list of organisations that can help is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.

Following the death of Pope Francis, Catholics around the world look to Rome and the Vatican as the Church prepares to elect its next leader. But what do Catholics around the world hope to see in their future pontiff? Colm Flynn is in Rome to speak to Catholics gathered from different corners of the globe. From pilgrims in St Peter's Square to others from the US and Africa, Colm explores the diverse expectations, aspirations, and concerns they hold for their new spiritual leader.

In January a boat carrying migrants across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe was miraculously rescued by a fishing trawler after two weeks lost at sea. At least 20 people died from starvation, dehydration and hypothermia. Many of those on the boat - Pakistani men - were promised safe, legal routes to Europe by the smugglers but that was far from their reality. BBC Trending tracks the digital footprint of one of the suspected smugglers wanted for deaths on this very migrant boat. On TikTok, trivial videos depict his lifestyle - one of money, nice restaurants and a lot of travel. But these videos reveal much more about the smuggler’s operations. Presenter/producer: Reha Kansara and Shruti Menon Producer: Mohammad Zubair Khan

Increasing numbers of Israeli people are moving to the nearby island of Cyprus. Sky high property prices, disillusion with domestic politics and security concerns following the Hamas attacks of 7th October have led several thousand families to leave. They’re building on a rich history of Cypriot hospitality towards Jews. But in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus, huge luxury developments built by Israeli companies are causing controversy.

In 2020, the Canadian writer Madeleine Thien was working on her next novel, the follow-up to her prize-winning 2016 book Do Not Say We Have Nothing. But it was difficult to find the internal peace and privacy to begin again, especially after being catapulted into the public eye by the previous novel’s success. Paul Kobrak followed her over several months as she created the first drafts of the new novel. It is a process which moves from Berlin to Brooklyn and finally to Portugal's capital city Lisbon. Five years later, the novel, called The Book of Records, is being published.

A bonus episode from Good Bad Billionaire - the award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can find more episodes by searching for ‘Good Bad Billionaire’ wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Minecraft is the most successful computer game ever. It's sold 300 million copies, built an active community of fans and there's now even a Minecraft movie. So how did one man - Markus Persson - create it all by himself, before selling it for billions? BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng find out how a high school dropout, obsessed with Lego and gaming, became a computer game hero. The Swedish programmer, known by the nickname Notch, built a virtual 3D world where, with the help of a pickaxe, players could harness their creativity to build almost anything, one block at a time. Persson founded the video game development company Mojang Studios, before selling it to Microsoft, but then came a spectacular downfall. Good Bad Billionaire is the podcast exploring the lives of the super-rich and famous, tracking their wealth, philanthropy, business ethics and success. There are leaders who made their money in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and in high street fashion. From iconic celebrities and CEOs to titans of technology, the podcast unravels tales of fortune, power, economics, ambition and moral responsibility, before inviting you to make up your own mind: are they good, bad or just another billionaire?

According to the World Health Organisation, 77% of Nigerian women have used skin-lightening creams. When BBC Hausa’s Madina Maishanu decided to look into this, she uncovered an even more worrying trend: mothers using potentially harmful products on their babies. Madina spoke to the campaigners trying to stop these practices. Plus, how human activities and climate change are threatening shea trees in Uganda with Njoroge Muigai from BBC Africa. Presented by Faranak Amidi Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Mark Lowen in Rome brings people together to share their memories of the Pope, who died on Easter Monday. In our conversations, Mark hears from Catholics in Argentina, including one of Pope Francis’ friends who knew him when he was a priest in Buenos Aires. We also bring together three people from Northern Ireland who had a private audience with the Pope, and three women who describe how he changed their lives. Mark sits down with Iraqi-American Pilgrims in a café just outside the Vatican to chat about what the Pope meant to them.

A bonus episode from Dear Daughter - the award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can find more episodes by searching for ‘Dear Daughter’ wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Bridgerton actor Adjoa Andoh joins Namulanta in the studio to share the letter she’s written to her three children. She tells them the importance of trusting their bodies and following their instincts - a life philosophy which has sometimes led her into some unexpected situations, especially while pregnant… Dear Daughter is a podcast all about love, life, family, and raising children. It is the brainchild of Namulanta Kombo, a mother on a quest to create a ‘handbook to life’ for her daughter, through the advice of parents from all over the world. Each episode, a guest reads a letter they’ve written to their children (or their future children, or the children they never had) with the advice, life lessons, and personal stories they’d like to pass on. Expect extraordinary true stories, inspirational advice for parents, and moving accounts of families, relationships and raising daughters. Share your letter! What do you want to say to your kids? Or the next generation? Do you have thoughts on motherhood, fatherhood, or parenthood to share? Whether you are a mum or mom, dad or papa, grandparent, uncle, aunt, daughter, son or just want to write a letter, send us a Whatsapp message on +44 800 030 4404 or visit bbcworldservice.com/deardaughter. You can read our privacy notice here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3ZFHNV8v7qgTm1zbKbkwsvR/dear-daughter-privacy-notice

Members of the new age Anastasia movement espouse strong family values, farm small plots of land and try to educate their own children outside the public school system. Originating in Russia, the quasi-religious group has now spread to Germany, where there are more than a dozen ‘Anastasia’ rural settlements. But are they more than just a harmless fringe group? Reporter Johannes Dell goes back to his native Germany to discover what the group stands for. He speaks to a former Anastasia member and to a German journalist who spent two years tracking the group. A government intelligence officer tells him why three German states have designated the group as extremist.

To mark Earth Day, we bring you remarkable stories of the history of the environmental movement, told by the people who were there. Selected from the BBC’s Witness History program, we hear about the major moments that changed our understanding of the planet we live on.

Following the death of Pope Francis, Edward Stourton looks at the life and legacy of the spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics worldwide. He was elected at a time of crisis for his Church, but quickly transformed its reputation. He urged Christians to be less judgemental and more welcoming of gay and divorced people. And as the first Pope from the Global South, he put the poor at the heart of the Church’s mission, speaking up for migrants and refugees and those worst hit by the impact of climate change. Edward Stourton speaks to people inside and outside the Catholic Church - including those who worked closely with him.

A cancelled election, a cancelled candidate and a divided country – is Romania’s democracy under threat? Last December the country’s Constitutional Court cancelled the presidential election two days before the final vote, citing outside interference, with the nationalist pro-Putin candidate, Calin Georgescu, riding high in the polls. TikTok sensation and portraying himself as an outsider, Georgescu’s anti-EU and anti-NATO message resonated with an unhappy electorate. His sudden success was unprecedented, as was the cancelation of a European democratic election. The political establishment claim that cyberwarfare and Russian interference gave them no choice. Georgescu has now been eliminated from May’s Presidential re-run. Historian Tessa Dunlop asks how this happened, why it matters and what next for this strategically important country on the eastern edge of the EU and NATO?

Amin Gulgee defies easy categorisation: he’s a metal sculptor, a curator, and one of Pakistan’s most innovative and cherished artists, the beating heart of his home city of Karachi’s creative scene. His metalwork is as dramatic and eccentric as Amin is. He’s in your face, uncompromising, a living and breathing performance piece. Amin also comes from a prestigious family: his father, Ismail Gulgee, was one of Pakistan’s most famous modernists, creating abstract paintings that have been exhibited across the globe, and even sketching heads of state like Reagan and Gaddafi. In 2007, Ismail and Amin’s mother Zaro were tragically murdered by their driver. It was Amin who found their bodies, in their house which adjoins his own studio and gallery. Much of Amin’s work since has been an attempt to come to terms and heal from this most tragic of events. Presenter Harry Stott meets Amin on location in his Karachi studio-cum-gallery-cum-home, as he prepares to open a new museum of his father’s work – the ‘most momentous’ thing he has ever attempted. We listen in as Amin shows us the calligraphy adorned doors which he has created for the museum’s entrance. We go inside his studio to hear about his creative process more widely. And we hear Amin come to terms with the tragedy of his parents’ death and the solace that he finds in his workshop. Amidst the tumult of this momentous museum opening in the already tumultuous city of Karachi, this episode of In the Studio attempts to understand how Amin’s two year process of creation, curation and healing will change his creative process for the years to come. Presenter & Producer: Harry Stott Co-producer & Fixer: Adam Fahy-Majeed Exec Producer: Sandra Ferrari Sound Design & Engineering: Alan Leer, Lizzy Andrews A Message Heard Production Image: Amin Gulgee (Credit: Humayun Memon)

In China today, looking good is seen as key to career success. With beauty videos promoting extreme weight-loss flooding social media, beauty apps making booking surgery click of a button away, China’s cosmetic surgery industry is booming. But the surge in demand has led to a shortage of qualified practitioners and licensed clinics. Hundreds of accidents are happening inside Chinese clinics every day. We talk to young women pressured into cosmetic procedures and expose the surgeon behind one of China’s most notorious botched surgeries. You can hear the full investigation ‘Make me Perfect’ on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts just search for ‘BBC the documentary’. Presenter: Natalia Zuo Producer: Ly Truong Editors: Rebecca Henschke and Monica Garnsey Mixed by: Gareth Jones

There are over 90,000 hi-definition CCTV cameras in Kabul, watching everyone’s movements. What are the Taliban using this footage for? BBC Afghan Services' journalist Mahjooba Nowrouzi was granted exclusive access into the country’s top security control room. Plus, BBC Mundo's William Márquez on the history of Charles Darwin's house, and Mayuresh Gopal reports for BBC Marathi on the geological and historical relevance of India's Lonar Crater Lake. Presented by Faranak Amidi Produced by Alice Gioia, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

The issue of colourism was highlighted in a recent BBC news report about a Nigerian woman who bleached the skin of her six young children leaving them with discoloured skin, burns and scars. It is a form of racism where light skin is more highly valued than dark skin amongst people of the same ethnic group. In our conversations, we hear from women who share experiences of colourism in India including Chandana who has faced colourism from an early age: “I was six or seven years old when I would first hear these conversations of my relatives saying that she’s a dark-skinned girl and you will have to pay a lot more dowry to get married and it will be such a struggle to find a husband for her.” We also bring together two black women who work in the fashion and beauty industry, where appearance is everything. Beauty journalist, Ateh, shares her experiences of colourism with Nyakim, a Sudanese American model known as Queen of the Dark after her naturally dark skin tone. Presenter: Luke Jones BBC producer: Iqra Farooq Boffin Media producer: Richard Hollingham An EcoAudio certified Boffin Media production in partnership with the OS team. (photo: Campaigner Chandana Hiran. Credit: Chandana Hiran)