A vision from beneath the waves
By Caroline Sascha Cogez (2021)
Winner of the Københavns Radiobiograf Shortdox 2021
With Andreas Skovby Hansen
Interview, edit and sound design by Caroline Sascha Cogez
For a longer Danish version of Andreas’ story click here.
For ‘City of Fables’ six people were scouted in the city of Bruges, each of them with a remarkable story about an encounter with an animal. These interviews were the starting point for six pieces in which the animals get a voice of their own throughout each episode. In Celtic and other animistic traditions, an encounter with an animal is never without meaning. Ruben Nachtergaele and Eva De Groote used this as a ‘red thread’ throughout the episodes. Subsequently connecting to the wisdom and playfulness brought by a running deer, a dead fox, a love bird, a bee and a bunch of frogs. The animals get the final say. This is the second episode of the podcast: ‘Heralds of Rain’.
‘Heralds of Rain’ won the FearLess Audio prize at HearSay International Sound Arts Festival 2021 in Ireland and was nominated at finalist at Third Coast International Audio Festival 2021.
City of Fables was realised with the support of Concertgebouw Brugge and KAAP
Eva De Groote: interview, script, text, voice
Ruben Nachtergaele: editing, bruitage, fieldrecording, music
Special thanks to Herman, Jacqueline and Sara Prové for their frog story
After training as an architect Ruben Nachtergaele took on several shapes as a sound artist and musician. As a composer and performer of electro-acoustical music, Ruben has collaborated with several live arts companies such as C.R.E.W. , Stevie Wishart, Ultima Thule and Tuning People. A recent solo performance is the audio ritual ‘Dust to Dust’.
Eva De Groote is a writer and audiomaker. Together with Ruben Nachtergaele she forms Audiobrewery Selkie, creating sound works in the form of podcasts and audio-experiences. In ‘Eardoor’ people living in the same street were portrayed, it turned out they had more in common than presumed. In ‘City of Fables’ remarkable encounters between people and animals are revealed.
In the summer of 2021, dozens, and later hundreds, of people started illegally crossing the Lithuanian border from Belarus every day. As a result, Lithuania reinforced its border protection, building a metal fence and a barbed-wire barrier and assigning troops to help the border guards.
Lithuania and the European Union say that this is a “hybrid attack” orchestrated by the Minsk regime, which has taken advantage of the desire of thousands of people to reach Western Europe and have a safer and better life there.
This is the story of two people – one guarding the border, the other crossing it illegally – and the circumstances that have led to the intersection of their lives.
I Remember His Look: The Story of a Soldier and a Migrant won the Gold Award for Best Documentary at Third Coast International Audio Festival (2023) and was presented at IFC Audiodocs 2022
Produced by Sigita Vegytė.
Editors Vaida Pilibaitytė and Adomas Zubė.
English translation by Ieva Žvinakytė
Sigita Vegytė is a Lithuanian radio journalist and documentary producer. She has worked as a news reporter and produced and presented programmes on foreign affairs and science for the Lithuanian national broadcaster LRT. In 2019 she joined an award-winning team producing radio documentaries for LRT RADIJAS.
To hear more work (with subtitles) from LRT visit their website here.
A seemingly quiet existence makes far-reaching connections across the airwaves. Winner of the Københavns Radiobiograf Shortdox 2020
Click here for more of Christina’s work
Arne’s HAM-radio name: OZ7MA
A musical evocation of landscape, language and tender attention to the ground beneath your feet.
By Nyokabi Kariũki (2021)
“In December 2020, my family and I were able to visit my Cũcũ (Grandmother) in her home in Githũnguri, Kenya. We walked around the farm — just as we always do when we visit — but this time, I found myself paying more attention: to the ground, to our languages of Kiswahili and Kikuyu; to the trees and fruit. It felt like the things around us were silently teaching me.”
Nyokabi Kariũki (b. 1998) is a Kenyan composer based between Kenya and the US. Her sound is ever-evolving, ranging from classical contemporary/experimental music to film, sound art, and (East) African musical traditions. She performs as a pianist, vocalist, and on instruments from the African continent – particularly the mbira and djembe. Nyokabi’s works have been seen at events around the globe, including the Hearsay International Audio Festival, where ‘A Walk Through My Cũcũ’s Farm’ received the 2021 Hearsay ‘Art’ Award; and her concert music has been regularly sought after, with commissions from the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Men’s Ensemble, to performances by Chromic, Third Coast Percussion, and more. Nyokabi continues to explore music and its impact in different ways, ultimately driven by a yearning to explore sound as a tool to not only re-discover the stories of her culture, but also to highlight its significance, and contribute to the preservation of African stories.
Listen to Nyokabi Kariũki’s music – and an extended version of this piece – on her Bandcamp and learn more about her work on her website.
Writing poems and mutetus (a Sardinian poetic form in the oral tradition), her voice crosses temporal barriers and takes us to the symbolic places of her existence – the river, the village, the sea, the hut built around a secular tree on the sand dunes of Pistis, together with her companion Efisio, a poet himself.
Iolanda, as she was known in her community, relied on the magnetic tapes to travel through time, return to the memories of her past and challenge the possibility of existing in the future, reaching us as a voice that is alive and present.
Iolanda They Call Me By Name was produced as part of the You Are So Sound (YASS!) mentorship program and production grant under the guidance of Rikke Houd and premiered at the 2021 Lucia Festival.
The story of a Brazilian woman who borrowed money from a ‘coiote’ to flee Brazil, leaving behind her two-year-old son, and crossed the border between Mexico and the USA on foot to escape death at the hands of her husband. Domestic violence against women in Brazil is a migration factor more common than we imagine.
‘Between Four Walls’ won the Best Documentary: Non-English Language award at the 2021 Third Coast International Audio Festival.
This episode was produced by Heloiza Barbosa, Paulo Pinheiro, Diogo Saraiva, Valquiria Gouvea and Adam Gamwell
The art-illustration is by Carli Ayô
Faxina’s theme song was composed by Anaís Azul
The episode’s original music is by Diogo Saraiva and Paulo Pinheiro.
You can follow Faxina on Instagram, facebook, and Twitter at @faxinapodcast You can leave them message on their WhatsApp (617) 396-6062. And you can support the work Faxina are doing by donating to their crowdfund campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/
A story flies away from the truth.
By Marta Medvešek (2020)
28 years ago, a man found an injured baby stork. Shot in the wing, she couldn’t fly. She was predestined to die. But the man changed her destiny.
Did he know that she would change his destiny just as much?
To keep her safe, warm and well fed, Stjepan had to give up on his own freedom of movement. Thanks to him – and against all odds – Malena was not only able to live, but also to find love – Klepetan.*
About 10 years ago an article about the old man and the stork came out in a local newspaper. Little by little the news spread, gaining worldwide fame as an unusual love story. But life is not a novel. Being someone’s wings is a full-time position. There’s no vacation, no retirement and especially not when the spotlights are on.
*In Croatian, Malena means ‘The Little One’, and Klepetan ‘The Clattering One’.
Winner of Best European Radio Documentary at the Prix Europa 2021
A feature by Marta Medvešek
Music by Jan Johansson
Coach: Gabriela Hermer
Sound: Bodo Pasternak, Erik Lehman, Marta Medvešek
Produced for the Åke Blomström Award with support of rbb, 2020.
Special thanks to Edwin Brys and the Åke Blomström 2019 training group.
Marta Medvešek is a Croatian audio artist based in Berlin. Her first piece – Guest Workers 2.0 – won the inaugural Adam Mickiewicz Institute prize. She’s produced work for BBC Radio 4’s Short Cuts, The Allusionist, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and Blinkist. She’s won the Åke Blomström Award 2019 for young feature makers, in the frames of which Fly or Die was produced. Fly or Die won the Best European Radio Documentary prize at the 2021 Prix Europa.
Love and deliverance.
By Nanna Hauge Kristensen for Radio24syv (2019)
Jørgen is 95 years old and has lived two lives. One as a husband and father, and one where he could be himself. After fifty-two years of marriage, he comes out, aged 80 years old.
Produced by Nanna Hauge Kristensen
Edit and mix: Ole Fugl Hørkilde
On memory and forgetting.
By Elena Dikomitis (2021)
‘Stew with Za’atar’ talks about coping with post-traumatic stress through Elena Dikomitis’ personal recount of the devastating August 2020 explosion in Beirut, Lebanon. In conversation with a psychologist, Dikomitis engages with her own memories to eventually take control over them.
Elena Dikomitis won the 2021 Korte Golf Competition with her Dutch spoken podcast ‘Stoofpot met Za’atar’ (‘Stew with Za’atar’). Korte Golf is organized by Oorzaken, a Dutch organization for storytelling in audio. www.oorzaken.org
Elena Dikomitis is a Belgian-Cypriot humanitarian aid worker specialised in communication, policy and advocacy work in the Middle-East. Both in her professional and personal life, she documents the needs and stories of people in conflict situations, in particular refugees. Dikomitis has Master’s degrees in Journalism, International Relations & Diplomacy and African Languages & Cultures.