The Documentary Podcast

The number of adults getting baptised in France has tripled in the last three years. Why are so many more adults joining the Church in France? We meet two of France’s new Christians, one baptised this Easter, one last Easter, and hear the strong stories they have to tell about the path they took and ask whether Catholicism is changing from a religion that baptises infants to one that baptises adults and whether that is a good thing...

Researchers in Morocco are developing dry-land agriculture at ICARDA (the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas). It is home to a gene bank, in which around 150,000 different seed-types are kept in perfectly calibrated cold vaults, and duplicated to protect them from ‘fire, earthquake and war.’ They’re used for the creation of new varieties - such as wheat or lentils resistant to drought or disease, withou...

Sidhu Moose Wala explodes onto the Canadian music scene. His sound is a fusion of two worlds - hip-hop with the poetic language of rural Punjab, where he is from. After years of struggle he is making it. But with the spotlight comes a dark side. As his fame grows, so do the threats. This is the hunt for answers in a killing that won’t be forgotten. A two-year-long investigation that exposes a tangled web of fame, power and vengeanc...

France’s last foyers – housing for immigrant workers – are set for demolition. But some current residents are worried about what they’ll lose.

Hundreds of “foyers” - housing units especially for immigrant workers – were built after World War II. The economy was booming and France needed unskilled labour to help rebuild the country. But since the 1990s there has been a policy to get rid of the old foyers and replace them with a type...

How do you imagine the future if you are a science fiction writer living in the present with your country at war? That is the challenge and dilemma for best selling author Max Kidruk. As he nears completion of Collapse, the second volume of a science fiction trilogy The New Dark Ages, his first volume, Colony has sold 60,000 copies in Ukraine. In the real world, Kidruk has had to fight against his own biological frailty and the abs...

Afghanistan used to produce more than 80% of the world's opium, the key ingredient for the drug heroin. When the Taliban took over, they banned poppy farming completely. 3 years on, how has this measure been implemented and how is it affecting people? Yama Bariz and Mamoon Durrani from the BBC's Afghan service discuss the effectiveness of the Taliban's poppy eradication campaign and explain how the trade is moving to Pakistan.

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Donald Trump campaigned hard on illegal immigration ahead of the presidential election and promised voters a major crackdown if they backed him. Since he came to power, the president has issued executive orders to fortify the country’s borders and suspend the entry of undocumented migrants. He has also vowed to oversee the largest deportation programme in American history with criminals and gang members prioritised in raids. The th...

Salma El-Wardany meets young women in Egypt using their voices to amplify their faith – drawing inspiration from the long tradition of female Quran reciters in the country. Following in the footsteps of pioneering women like Sheikha Munira Abdou who was first heard on Egyptian Radio 100 years ago and the renowned singer Umm Kulthum, more Egyptian women are sharing their recitations of the Quran publicly. They’re stepping out of the...

British-Pakistani pharmacist turned comedian Lubna Kerr hears from doctors, sufferers, and experts as she explores Pakistan’s growing diabetes crisis. With type 2 diabetes rates now the highest in the world, the disease is affecting millions - shaping lives, straining healthcare, and raising questions about prevention. Many sufferers remain undiagnosed, missing crucial early intervention. But for those who do receive a diagnosis, t...

An inspiration, a politician, a pioneer on and off court - these just some of the words used to describe Arthur Ashe, who became the first African-American to win the men's Wimbledon singles title against Jimmy Connors in 1975.

It was one of the most iconic sporting moments of the 20th Century at a time of huge political and racial unrest.

Ashe’s life spans America’s Civil Rights struggle, the ending of South Africa’s system of apa...

In 2021, a huge container ship, the X-Press Pearl caught fire and sank off the coast of Sri Lanka, releasing hazardous materials, toxic chemicals and more than 1000 tonnes of microplastic pellets into the sea. The UN called it an environmental catastrophe. Today, Sri Lanka is still counting the cost. Leana Hosea visits Sri Lanka to investigate the legacy of the disaster, and find out why, four years on, there’s still a battle for c...

Indian music star Sidhu Moose Wala died in a hail of bullets. Who wanted him dead and why? He was one of India’s biggest stars — a voice millions followed. Then Sidhu Moose Wala was gunned down. This is the hunt for answers over a murder that won’t be forgotten. A two-year long investigation that exposes a tangled web of fame, power and vengeance and uncovers a criminal underworld that reaches far beyond India's borders. Presented ...

Why are Poland's young voters turning to the right? With his veto powers, Poland’s president-elect Karol Nawrocki could halt the pro-EU government of Donald Tusk. Poland is a NATO member and backs Ukraine in the war with Russia. Scaling up security is an issue almost all Poles agree on, yet there are some signs of shifting attitudes - on foreign policy and immigration. We examine the gender gap among voters and the recent election ...

Poland’s president-elect, Karol Nawrocki, is a right-wing historian, an amateur boxer and a fan of Donald Trump. What will his presidency mean for the region? Kateryna Khinkulova, editor of the newly launched BBC News Polska, explains. Plus, India’s ‘tailor on wheels’ with Anil Kumar reporting for BBC Telugu and the science of smiling with Alassane Dia from BBC Afrique.

This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth F...

Following the recent bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites by the United States, we talk to Iranians living in the US about their thoughts as they watch events in the Middle East from afar. They describe feeling conflicted about the attacks carried out by their adopted homeland. They worry about friends and relatives who could be in danger back in Iran. But perhaps unsurprisingly for an exiled community, they have strong views on the Ira...

DJ Fatboy Slim’s Praise You is a song you might have heard in a Hollywood movie or danced to in a club - to this day, it is still his biggest hit. But there is something you won’t know: the singer behind the lyrics or the true meaning of the words. Civil rights activist Camille Yarbrough first released Take Yo’ Praise 50 years ago. It was written as a love letter to African-American men, inspired by a moment of spiritual awakening ...

One of the first executive orders that President Donald Trump signed in his second term of office stated that being transgender is incompatible with the ‘rigorous standards necessary for military service’. It set the stage for a ban on trans people serving in the military, regardless of ability, rank or service history. Official figures say there are 4,240 transgender service members in the US armed forces, however research commiss...

The daily realities and private thoughts of a young woman living through war. Every morning, Hanya Aljamal sees the same man from her balcony. “He has this tiny garden in the middle of all this concrete stuff,” she says. “Just across the road, there’s a blown-up building. Yet he’s cultivating these little herbs and plants. And I look at that and it just looks like the purest form of resistance.” Hanya has been living in a war z...