2025 Selects: Drops from Heaven

Patrick McNameeKing (US 2025)

7 min

Alesia shares how she began communicating with the deceased, and the impact of her career as a medium.

Produced by Patrick McNameeKing
Music by Patrick McNameeKing

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2025 Selects: Life In Progress

Phoebe McIndoe (UK/DE 2025)

6 min

Life in Progress is the story of Nanou Thassinda and her journey for belonging and acceptance in the UK. After Nanou's dad was murdered in The Democratic Republic of the Congo for publicly speaking-out against the government, Nanou lived as an asylum seeker for 11 years in and around London. In that time, Nanou found hope and empowerment, experimenting with english and the specific regional dialects she encountered as she moved from door to door. This piece is about finding voice, hope and the ever-transitory nature of life.

Produced by Phoebe McIndoe
Voice & Story: Nanou Thassinda.
Executive Editor: Ingo Kottkamp

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2025 Selects: Reality Looks Back

Anne Jeppesen (DK, 2025)

Annejeppesen · Reality looks back

21 min

When you watch a particle it acts like a particle. But when you look away, it does a whole other thing.

This story explores modes of experiencing the strange quantum basis of an everyday life. It journeys through split déja-vu, Schrödinger’s hamster and the clouds of possibilities that are hiding just beyond our reach.

This piece was developed as a part of the YASS! Mentorship program facilitated by Radio Papesse and mentored by Cristal Duhaime.

Written and Produced by Anne Jeppeseen

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2025 Selects: Shorn Women

Chloe Turpin (UK/FR 2025)

33 min

At the end of WWII, around 20,000 women across France were accused of ‘horizontal collaboration’. Their alleged crime: sleeping with German soldiers. And their punishment was having their heads shaved and facing a public beating. Chloe’s grand-mother’s Émilienne was one of the shorn women of French liberation. Like many others at the time, her story was always shrouded in shame and mystery.

From uncomfortable conversations with family members in Brittany to a trawl through the French National Archives, Shorn Women looks at this controversial and overlooked historical event. Confronting official and personal narratives, it's a story about justice, taboo and the power of speech.

Produced, Written and Music by Chloe Turpin
Voices: James Davey, Naomi Bloomstein and George Roll

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2025 Selects: Live or Dye

Maria Conterno (IT, 2024)

Kaleidacoustics · Live or dye

11 min

Four women talk about life, ageing, and accepting (or not) their ageing body. And the role society plays in that. Four different perspectives, four voices telling four stories that diverge, overlap and end up in the same bold choice: not dying their grey hair.

Produced by Maria Conterno

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All Under One Magnetosphere

Hannah Kelp-Welch & Oliver Sanders (UK 2025)

28 min

Electromagnetic waves fill the universe, radiating  from solar storms and bursts of lightning, but also from our electronic devices and infrastructures. Using simple, DIY tools, a community of audio enthusiasts translates these waves into sound, uncovering hidden sonic worlds.

Five dedicated ‘natural radio’ enthusiasts venture beyond the electromagnetic pollution of the city, tuning into the Earth’s natural static to reveal a rich, textured soundscape rarely heard.

Stephen McGreevy, a cult figure within this practice, shares stories of his recordings during the geomagnetic storm of 1989. Hannah Kemp-Welch travels to northern Norway in search of the electromagnetic waves of the aurora borealis, struggling to escape the omnipresent hum of the mains power grid. Alyssa Moxley captures the crackles of shooting stars in southern France; Matt Parker ventures into the National Radio Quiet Zone in Virginia, USA; and Anonea experiments with antennas from a remote location in northern Spain.

This audio feature encourages listeners  to contemplate the vast, often invisible role electromagnetism plays in our daily lives. It invites us to look up at the sky and imagine radio waves bouncing off layers of the atmosphere, connecting us all under one magnetosphere.

Produced by Hannah Kemp-Welch and Oliver Sanders

Research & Development: Hannah Kemp-Welch
Editing & Sound Design: Oliver Sanders
Executive Producer: Lucia Scazzocchio

Special thanks to Anonea, Alyssa Moxley, Dan Tapper, Francesca Thakorlal, Matt Parker, Rob Stammes, Rebekah Breding, Ruth Stewart, Sébastien Robert and Stephen P. McGreevy.

A Social Broadcasts production for BBC Radio 4- Illuminated

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Gary's Lincoln Continental

Anna Van Dine (US 2024)

Anna · Gary's Lincoln Continental

2 min

Gary of St. Johnsbury, VT, talks about the car that makes him happy. Her name is Big Red.

Produced by Anna Van Dine

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NOISE CAPITAL

Sofia Kourous Vazquez, (PY/UK 2025)

52 min

NOISE CAPITAL is completed feature-length audio documentary exploring our complex relationship with the urban soundscape. How does sound become noise, and who decides?

The programme blends interviews with a range of contributors including soundscape researcher John Levack Drever, the Noise Abatement Society, venue operators at MOTH Club and the George Tavern, acousticians, nightlife advocates, mediators, venue owners, and writer Emma Warren. Through these voices, the doc examines the frictions between complaints, regulation, and cultural expression.

Produced by Sofia Kourous Vazquez 
Music by Jake Thomas

Produced as part of an audio storytelling MA

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The Trees of Saunders Park

Claire Sabel and Alex Lewis (US, 2025)

34 min

The Trees of Saunders Park presents stories about trees and why people feel connected to them. It is centered on profiles of residents who have planted individual trees in Saunders Park, the main public green space in the West Powelton neighborhood of Philadelphia, a part of the city that has experienced considerable displacement and gentrification for decades. Though each tree story is unique, the piece explores connecting threads between them: the ethos of DIY planting, neighbors confronting gentrification, connecting to the earth in urban environments, communal joy in spite of neighborhood change and loss..

Written & hosted by Claire Sabel
Produced by Alex Lewis

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There Was There Was Not: The Women of Artsakh - Uncovering Roots

Maxim Saakyan (UK 2025)

32 min

Linum e, chi linum. There Was There Was Not. This is how Armenians begin their myths and stories, the same saying as "Once Upon a Time."

Filmmaker Emily Mkrtichian spent several years in Artsakh documenting four women building their lives and fighting for their place in society. In this episode we follow two of them in Artsakh. Sose, a judo champion dreaming of the Olympics. Siranush, a politician determined to prove women could lead differently.

Then September 27, 2020 arrived, and the question became: What do you do when your world suddenly disappears?

Produced by Maxim Saakyan

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