The Documentary Podcast

You might not know the name Dan Perri, but you will probably have seen his work: he designed the title sequences for some of the most famous films in cinema history. Mark Burman hears how he created the titles for Star Wars, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Exorcist.

A few years ago, the town of Anam in Southern Nigeria was known for all the wrong reasons: high levels of crime and knife and gun violence. A group of local women, known as 'ụmụadas', decided to take matters into their own hands and confronted criminals with... their kitchen spoons. BBC Igbo editor Adline Okere, who is an ụmụada herself, has the story. Plus, how Subagunam Kannan's passion for filming ants in his own house led him to make a viral video for BBC Tamil, and a train journey through Thailand and Laos with Thuong Le from BBC Vietnamese.Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

“I’m looking for a man in finance …” is the opening line of one of the most viewed, copied and remixed social media posts of the year. The woman behind it, Megan Boni, aka TikTok’s Girl on Couch, invented the rhyme as a jokey description of the perfect man she and her single friends would like to meet. She posted it one evening, and the internet went wild. It has been a similar story for Scottish actor Kirsty Paterson. Kirsty was photographed looking dejected in a sad green Oompa Loompa wig at possibly the world’s worst Willie Wonka-inspired event ever. The picture, which she hates, was shared around the world, and the initial publicity led to a slew of vicious replies. Megan and Kirsty are joined by Kelley Heyer, the inventor of the Charli XCX's Apple Dance, and Auri Kananen, Finnish queen of housecleaning videos, to discuss what it is like to ‘go viral’, and what happens next.

In the aftermath of Bangladesh’s political unrest and the student-led protests that led to the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024, the country is facing a period of transition and uncertainty. Amid the chaos, harrowing videos and reports of violent attacks against the Hindu minority flooded social media—images of burning buildings, horrifying violence, and women weeping as they pleaded for help. However, some began to doubt the veracity and authenticity of these videos after they seemed to be sensationalised by right-wing influencers and news outlets in neighbouring India.Despite this, shocking new videos of alleged attacks continue to appear on social media, with little or no acknowledgement from a world that is now questioning their legitimacy. In the first episode of a two-part series for BBC World Service’s Heart & Soul, reporter Sahar Zand travels to Bangladesh to investigate the truth behind the contradictory news headlines and the contrasting videos emerging daily online. There, Sahar follows two Hindu university students, Sukanto and Banamali, who have made it their mission to verify and document what they describe as brutal assaults on their community, determined to set the record straight.Sahar follows Sukanto and Banamali as they travel to some of the worst-affected areas, and sees and hears firsthand accounts of homes burned, families separated, temples desecrated, and entire villages torn apart by mob violence. Despite their tireless efforts to report the truth, the two friends say that the Hindu experience in Bangladesh has been met with silence from both the world's media and the country's authorities. Producer: Sahar Zand Executive producer: Rajeev Gupta