XMTR Festival Selects: County Lines | Episode 1 | Their World

Phoebe Mcindoe (UK 2024)

41 min

This powerful and highly personal series investigates how criminal networks systematically exploit vulnerable young people, transforming them from ordinary schoolchildren into drug dealers through manipulation, violence, and trauma. An estimated 50,000 children in Britain have been groomed into county lines drug trafficking, yet their stories remain largely hidden.

In this first episode, Phoebe McIndoe hears from those caught in the web of county lines. Between the promise of quick money and the reality of extreme violence, we reveal how Britain's drug trade is being built on the backs of traumatized children, and why the system often fails to protect them.

Presented by Phoebe McIndoe
Produced by Redzi Bernard and Phoebe McIndoe
With original music by Phoebe McIndoe
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

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XMTR Festival Selects: Lightning Refuge

Kristina Loring (US 2025)

4 min

What are the gems that lie beneath the wounds? Ruha's family escaped violent riots in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1983, just three months before she was born.  They were targeted because they were Tamil, the minority. Their successful survival could be seen as a string of coincidences, the result of deep human connections. Or was it the result of supernatural intervention?

This piece was created for The Golden Tape project by Kristina Loring, a mixtape of human essence where artists share their secretive and beloved pleasures, grief, ritual, and desires that they want to keep hidden from AI commodification.   

Producer by: Kristina Loring
Voices: Ruha Devanesan and AJ Devanesan 

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XMTR Festival Selects: Transition

Kalli Anderson (US, 2023)

10 min

A multi-voice, experimental documentary featuring excerpts from SIMULA, an 8.2-channel sound installation by apè Aliermo and mixed and mastered by Rose Bolton. This composition includes sound recorded during three anonymous births and electromagnetic sound recorded in a hospital during one of the births. The voices you hear speaking are Redzi Bernard, Becky Kenna, Amy Macfarlane and Andrea Gummo.

Produced by Kalli Anderson, apè Aliermo and Rose Bolton
Edited by Eleanor McDowall

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XMTR Festival Selects: Making Utopia

Mitra Kaboli (US 2025)

39 min

Making Utopia is an experimental oral history about Mount Lebanon in upstate New York. This story explores a single tract of land that has repeatedly drawn communities seeking to create their own perfect world.

The narrative weaves together the stories of five individuals from different eras and communities connected to this remarkable place. While Mount Lebanon is most famously known as the central ministry for The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as The Shakers, the mountain's story extends far beyond this well-documented chapter.

Through these interconnected histories, Making Utopia investigates a compelling question: What mysterious qualities draw idealistic communities to this particular place, generation after generation?

Producer & Reporter:  Mitra Kaboli
Production Manager & Editor: Jess Shane
Additional Editorial Support: Jackson Roach, Liza Yeager, and Signal Hill
Singers: Annabel Lee, Fiona Feng, Jacqui Cornetta, Kira Josefsson, Rider Alsop, Carly Richman, Savannah Strenz, Hanna Johansson, Sanna Samuelsson

Archival Audio Courtesy of Soundings Mindful Media archive, by Dean & Dudley Evenson.
Making Utopia is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

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XMTR Radio Hour #36: Festival Preview

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2025)

60 min / Episode 36 of 36

This XMTR (Transmitter) Radio Hour features a selection of audio works that have been submitted to xmtr.fm: Nanou Thassinda tells her story of belonging and acceptance in the UK through a study of regional accents in Life in Progress by Phoebe Macindoe, Chloe Turpin has uncomfortable conversations with her family in Brittany about a shameful event concerning her grandmother Emmeline during WW2 in Shorn Women, and Giacomo Bagni has to come to terms with the replacement son that his father has chosen to spend time with in Brothers. 

XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

Follow the series

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Baring All in The Name of Art

Minnie Harrop (UK 2023)

13 min

What does it mean to bare all in the name of art? Life drawing is standard practice in the art world. Artists come together to draw a model who poses completely nude, often directed by a tutor. With nudity practically taboo in Western society, it is one of the few instances in which nakedness is normalised. For many people, life drawing is an unfamiliar concept, and life modelling completely unimaginable. This programme is unique in connecting the experiences of artists, models and tutors, and illuminating a community that is perhaps under-explored in documentary media.

Produced by Minnie Harrop
Music: 'Slow Jam 1' by King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard

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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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XMTR RADIO HOUR #35: Accents, Shame and Substitutes

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2025)

60 min / Episode 35 of 35

This XMTR (Transmitter) Radio Hour features a selection of audio works that have been submitted to xmtr.fm: Nanou Thassinda tells her story of belonging and acceptance in the UK through a study of regional accents in Life in Progress by Phoebe Macindoe, Chloe Turpin has uncomfortable conversations with her family in Brittany about a shameful event concerning her grandmother Emmeline during WW2 in Shorn Women, and Giacomo Bagni has to come to terms with the replacement son that his father has chosen to spend time with in Brothers. 

XMTR Radio Hour Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

Follow the series

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Searching for the Lost Language of Cumbric

Caitlin Kennedy (UK 2024)

Caitlin Kennedy 1 · Searching For The Lost Language Of Cumbric

36 min

In a quest to uncover the lost Celtic language of Cumbric, I hunt for clues in Cumbria's history, folklore, and dialects. Helped along the way by folk musicians, storytellers and a linguist with a secret, I grapple with the complexities of language evolution and how we mythologise the past.

Produced by Caitlin Kennedy with support from Gareth Mitchell and Paul Chauncy.
Featuring the voices and contributions of Neil Whalley, Gordon Jones, Phillip Gate, Tom Fisher and Sheila Fell. Music credit: Joe Broughton Folk Ensemble; Old Molly Metcalfe by Jake Thackray; Jus a wee deoch an' doris by Sir Harry Lauder & Gerald Grafton

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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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