Earshot

Imagine facing death with no next of kin and no funds to pay for your funeral.  In Victoria you’ll end up in the care of Alan Barr at the Old Ballan Cemetery. He’s made a promise to people like this, who often become State Trustees, to provide a dignified end to their lives. When Miyuki Jokiranta finally finds her friend, Monika, a State Trustee who died during the pandemic, she meets Alan, the ke...

Promise me you won’t walk out of our restaurant, quit on our kids, run from our poverty, ignore our autism, ADHD or alopecia, or be defeated by our pandemic-induced loss of home and income. If author Naomi Hart had known the marriage vows that had tripped off her tongue so easily 14 years ago would come to mean all this, would she ever have said them in the first place? You will laugh, cringe and...

Susan Lester inadvertently entered a world of political and corporate corruption when she was made the promise of a lifetime by one of Tasmania’s most powerful businessmen. When she signed a contract with Edmund Rouse to paint 200 watercolours of birds she had no idea it would be a decision that would overwhelm her and her artistic career.

Jess made a promise to a woman she would never meet, the mother of her daughter Noelle. Baby Noelle was found in the arms of her dead birth mother on the streets of Kinshasa in The Congo, she lived in an orphanage until she was four. Now, she’s 16 and living in Melbourne with Jess and her sisters, but she’s never known another Congolese person. Will a trip to Shepparton to meet the Congolese commu...

It was supposed to be a hiking adventure, but it ended in an unforeseeable accident that would change Warren and Geert's futures forever.  

The unlikely story of two half-sisters who connected late in life, a birth mother turned adoptive mother, and what can happen when biological relatives turn up out of the blue.

When her Parkinson's Disease medication stopped working musician and writer Linda Neil was in a very dark place. But a treatment called Deep Brain Stimulation has allowed her to return to playing the violin, singing, songwriting, living an independent life and riding her pink bicycle.

Earshot presents documentaries about people, places and ideas, in all their diversity.

Tales of following your fantasy to find your true self. Performing as a drag king on-stage has helped Rae be her authentic non-binary self off-stage and by night Kusaki becomes something else…something animal, when he slips into a fur suit.

Martin lives out of a shopping trolley and sleeps rough on the cold streets of Canberra. But his passion for running, gift for words and an unlikely friend help him to get by.

Andrew was building a life and career in Singapore when his world was turned upside down by a routine visit to the doctor.

Come on a wild ride through the compelling life of Taku Mbudzi, who defied the constraints of a strict Zimbabwean church, embarked on a solo journey to Australia at 19, and held onto a life-altering secret that shattered her father's heart. Discover how she harnessed the healing power of comedy, to develop resilience, understanding and forgiveness.

It used to be said that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus but Max has been to both planets. As a trans-man he has some fascinating observations about the world of men, having stood on the other side of the gender divide.

Jim Everett is a man of many selves  – philosopher, fisherman, scholar, activist, poet, soldier, filmmaker, sauce maker. And at sixteen he discovered a hidden part of himself.

What does your voice say about you? Not your choice of words, but all the extra information the voice carries, like our emotions, accents, even apparently our identity. Details that big tech and governments are more and more interested in each day.

Paulina always knew she had half- siblings around the world. They all shared the same Tongan father. Finding them was the best thing she ever did.

Secrets are everywhere, we hide all sorts of truths about ourselves. Taku Mbudzi brings you stories of double identities, recently discovered inner-selves and journeys of transformation.

All those statistics you hear about the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people? In Balgo it’s a gaping chasm. Especially for Aboriginal people with a disability.

The remote Aboriginal community of Balgo is famous for footy, art and fighting. But it’s a community in crisis, where “the gap” reveals its deepest scars. Dulcie and George are fighting to save it.

For as long as she can remember, Zoe’s dad Greg was addicted to alcohol. By the time she was 26, his drinking had taken its final toll. And this led to a reckoning.  “What are my memories of dad? Am I actually remembering something real, or just creating a memory from an old photo? Was that really me? Or one of my sisters who wore that dress and sat on his knee?” Ghost in the Machine documents Zoe...

Sunil's mother loved telling him stories of his colourful uncle, India's best-known sceptic, who devoted his life to disproving fraudulent gurus' "miracles" by eating fire, bending forks and floating mid-air. But at the heart of the Sceptic's magic was a disappearing act.

Julie found herself collecting the ashes of her dead friend Laurie, even though they hadn’t spoken for ten years and she had no idea he was dying. In this intriguing trip into the realm of death and memory Julie finds out what happened to Laurie and works out a unique way to honour him and his ashes.

A comment at a funeral pushes Toby Hemmings to discover what his grandfather, Bill Hoddinott, recorded on reel-to-reel tapes back in the 1960s. What he finds are fragments of Aboriginal languages from long ago – can you revive a language from such little material?

Earshot presents documentaries about people, places and ideas, in all their diversity.

What is ordinary life like for Russians as their lives are shaped by a *** they had no say in?