The Documentary Podcast

What does it take to make something which has never existed on Earth before? The search for element 120 on the periodic table has begun at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Cosmologist Andrew Pontzen, who is used to studying the processes of creation, visits the 88-inch Cyclotron facility at Berkeley, where the next new element may be created very soon. To uncover what motiv...

Kenyan authorities recently reported that 200 of their citizens are fighting for Russia in the war in Ukraine. Many of them have reported that they travelled to Russia after replying to job adverts for roles as drivers, security guards and cooks. It was only on arrival that they were sent for military training, and then sent to the battlefield in Ukraine. BBC Newsday's David Wafula has spoken to f...

In the past few days there have been a number of deaths on ski slopes in the Alps and, in recent months, hikers in Greece, climbers in Italy’s Dolomite mountains, and guides in the Himalayas have all lost their lives. The peak season for these huge and potentially lethal mass movements of snow is now underway in the northern hemisphere. To understand the dangers, and what it’s like to experience a...

*** This programme contains graphic descriptions of body mutilation *** In the Nepalese Himalaya, one of the world’s rarest and most spiritually profound funeral rites is still practised: the Sky Burial. In some circumstances when a person dies, their body is offered to wild vultures. According to local Bon and Tibetan Buddhist customs, this burial is reserved only for those whose karma is deemed...

In 1867, the US government bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million dollars. At the time, critics questioned the value of purchasing such an inhospitable and remote territory. Yet today, due to its abundance of natural resources, America’s largest state has proved to be a significant investment. BBC foreign correspondent Anna Holligan travels to Alaska to report on the increasing China-Russia-US...

*** This programme contains very strong language *** Over the past year, BBC Eye has followed the journeys of young men from Syria, Egypt, and Yemen who travelled to Russia in search of work, only to end up on the frontlines in Ukraine. Why are these men risking their lives in a war that is not theirs? Many, including students, say they were tricked into fighting for the Russian army by a recruite...

'Start by lighting a candle every morning.’ In other words, pray. That’s the advice on one social media platform to those looking for a rented property in the Netherlands. The pressure on housing is immense: an estimated shortage of 400,000 homes. It was the number one issue in the recent Dutch general election, with the winning D66 party promising to build '10 new cities'. Desperate times call fo...

Bianca Raffaella is a partially sighted painter based in Margate. Working entirely by touch and memory, her flower and figure paintings emerge from a world of blurred vision, visual static, and sensory recall. Raffaella paints what she perceives in flickers, dappled fragments of colour, flashes of form, shaped through instinct, fingertips, and palette knives. Sahar Zand meets Bianca in her studio,...

Humans have spread to every corner of the globe, transforming ecosystems and reshaping landscapes. Is there anywhere left on Earth that is unaffected by humans? Anywhere we haven’t changed – at all? Presenter Caroline Steel and producer Florian Bohr begin their mission to find No Man's Land, if it exists.

A recent BBC Persian documentary, Taraneh, has recieved millions of views online. It features an Iranian actress who is considered an icon in the country and has been starring in films for nearly 30 years. Her name is Taraneh Alidoosti and in 2022 she was arrested for taking a photograph of herself in her home, not wearing a hijab, and holding a sign showing support for the 'Woman, Life, Freedom'...

After the dramatic US military operation that saw Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife taken from the country and placed in a New York prison, what, if anything, has changed for Venezuelans? We speak to Venezuelans about their experiences of living in Venezuela – the good and the bad. Vanessa tells us that even liking social media posts that appear to oppose the government could land p...

Relations between Jews and Muslims in Morocco have historically been strong unlike elsewhere in North Africa and the Middle East. Although now relatively small, Morocco’s vibrant Jewish community is still regarded as an important part of the country’s history and culture. In Casablanca there are a number of functioning synagogues, kosher butchers and Jewish schools. More than a million Moroccan Je...

Clint Buffington is a hunter. He hauls his trophies back to his lab, covers himself in PPE and studies each specimen with pathological scrutiny. However, Clint is not the sort of hunter you might think. Based in Utah USA, the self-titled 'Message In a Bottle Hunter', Clint hunts for bottles on beaches all over the world.

In a programme which first aired in November 2025, Jonny Dymond chairs a debate about the future of Greenland. Leading Greenlandic and Danish politicians discuss questions of American territorial ambitions, independence, mining and human rights on this Arctic island.

How poetry is used by Persian-speaking leaders to build legitimacy and shape the political narrative. Across Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, millions share a language — and passion for poetry. But with its abundance of lovers and wine, Persian poetry sits uneasily with Iran’s theocratic leaders. We explore their complicated relationship with this facet of Persian identity and how they occasiona...

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, TB is humanity’s oldest contagious disease. It has become something of an afterthought in rich nations, but remains the world’s most deadly infectious disease. In 2024 it killed more than 1.2 million people. South Africa has one of the highest TB burdens in the world, but it has also developed one of the most sophisticated scientific ecosystems for...

We follow the Finnish comedian Ismo Leikola—known simply as Ismo—as he performs in both English and Finnish. We explore his distinctive brand of intellectual humour and how he enjoys creating theories about the world around him. ISMO was once named the funniest person in the world, and we gain a sense of his celebrity status, particularly in his hometown of Jyväskylä. He also reveals why he avoids...

Nostalgia. That sentimental feeling of the past. Memory is a powerful thing and we tend to look back on our firsts fondly. Your first phone, your first best friend, your first kiss… But it turns out you can also feel nostalgic for things you weren’t around for. In the last few years, for Gen Z, there’s been a huge rise in things like y2k fashion, old school technology like flip phones and digital...

Poetry about love between a man and a woman was banned by the Taliban in September 2025. For many Afghans, poetry is something which is very much a part of everyday life and has often been passed down in the oral, folk-law tradition. It weaves in and out of conversation effortlessly and is an important way of connecting with one another. In this episode of The Fifth Floor, we discuss one of the mo...

The first crew arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) 25 years ago. Since then, almost 300 people from some 20 nations have visited the orbiting laboratory. If you were born after November 2000, for your entire life, there has always been someone living in space. Astronauts Tim Peake and Nicole Stott share their experiences of living on the ISS. Nasa’s latest venture, Artemis II, is due...

Born into a Bosnian Muslim family, Salih Hardaga grew up knowing that his family had done a very courageous thing. During the Nazi occupation of Sarajevo, his parents, Mustafa and Zeinaba, sheltered their Jewish friends, the Kabiljos, even though their home stood opposite a Nazi headquarters. After World War Two, the Kabiljos moved to Israel, but the families kept in touch - and in the early 1990s...

Ballet, a centuries-old form of European dance, is flourishing in one of Africa’s largest informal settlements. In Kibera, Kenya, we follow aspiring young dancers as they prepare for their biggest performance yet. Amid the pirouettes, jumps and lifts, Carolyne Kiambo discovers how ballet is helping these young Kenyans beyond the stage.

A raw and intimate perspective on the terror, anger, and hope of living through war. As bombs hit ever closer to her home in central Gaza, Hanya Aljamal spots her elderly neighbour tending to his garden. “He's been raking the earth,” she says, “prepping the soil for new seeds. Given everything that's already happening, it's quite interesting seeing him do that right now. I mean, if grandpa thinks...

People in Gainesboro, Tennessee, have some new neighbours. A conservative developer has bought land just outside the tiny rural Appalachian town, with the aim of forging an “aligned” community based on shared values like “faith, family, and freedom“. Two of the first people to come to town are controversial Christian nationalists who talk about civilisational collapse and the “imperative for like-...

Following his time at Cern, Haroon Mirza has been creating a major installation based on his research there. The piece, made with his collaborator Jack Jelfs, is a sculptural art work which uses a circle of eight speakers, a large screen and an octagonal chandelier sculpture of LEDs to compose light, sound and video. Combined with a careful manipulation of spatial acoustics, the viewer is cocooned...