Podcast: Radio Atlas

By Rūta Dambravaitė and Inga Janiulytė-Temporin for LRT (2024)

Vitalius and Albinas have been together for 52 years. As they grow old and Albinas’ memory slowly fades, Vitalius is tired of hiding and decides to tell their life story publicly for the first time. This documentary, created for LRT’s Radijo dokumentika series, tenderly unspools the years they’ve spent together.

Lithuania currently does not recognise either same sex marriages or civil unions. After ‘Coming Out‘ aired on Lithuanian radio, its online version quickly became the most shared and streamed episode in the show’s history. It reopened a public debate on human rights and led to activists organising a symbolic humanist wedding ceremony for Vitalius and Albinas. It was the first time Vitalius held Albinas’ hand in public. Twenty-one thousand people signed the certificate as witnesses – a document which Vitalius has now handed over to the national museum.

Produced by Rūta Dambravaitė and Inga Janiulytė-Temporin

Translation by Vaida Pilibaitytė and Justinas Šuliokas

Winner of the Prix Europa European Audio Documentary of the Year 2024 and featured at the EBU Audio Storytelling Festival 2024.

Rūta Dambravaitė is a journalist at Lithuanian National Radio and Television, LRT, creating audio stories for almost a decade. She produces the program Radijo dokumentika and covers global cultural events. Her stories focus on social, historical, and cultural topics. Currently, Rūta is studying visual anthropology and documentary practices at the University of Münster, Germany. She is always looking for ways to tell stories sensitively and responsibly, making an effort to understand her subjects and the context they come from.

Inga Janiulytė-Temporin has been working as an environmental journalist and audio documentary producer at Lithuanian National Radio and Television, LRT, since 2017. She is interested in untold stories and providing a platform to people and places that have not had access to it before.

By Joyce de Badts (2025)

By Daniel Semo (2024)

Karina’s reflection comes from the piece Cocina, on day 8 of the series 14 Days in Mexico City, by audio producer Daniel Semo.

Daniel lived in Mexico City as a child, but is now based in Melbourne, Australia.

By Qing Hu (2024)

‘Have you eaten?’ is a common Chinese greeting, like asking ‘how are you?’ in English. In this short feature, Qing Hu uses the phrase to redraw a line of connection between her current home in New York and her grandmother.

Qing Hu is an audio producer and journalist based in New York now. She was born and raised in Xi’an, China.

By Hrvoje Korbar and Marija Pečnik Kvesić (2023)

We easily recall the images, smells and tastes that have marked our lives, but what about the sounds? What about the voices of those who are no longer with us? What ultimately stands the test of time?

An intimate acoustic work by director Hrvoje Korbar and sound engineer Marija Pečnik Kvesić, La nave partira (The Ship Sails On) is a nostalgic dedication to family legacy, an audio reconstruction of fragments of personal and family memories and a farewell to a lost world and its languages.

Starting from the recording tapes the author found while clearing up the apartment after the death of his grandparents, the authors construct a collage of documentary footage, ambient sound, poetic autofictional texts and musical memories. The ephemeral nature of sound and human voice stands in opposition to the material nature of objects and images, the impermanence of memory trying to find its final form.

Winner of Best Short Form at the Prix Marulić (2024)

By Kato Vanackere (2020)

A woman in her thirties struggles to get out of bed, to face herself in the mirror, and to muster the will to head to work. She’d much rather turn back and go for a swim.

“Nu Dan”  is a concept album by Kate Vanackere, consisting of four tracks that offer a glimpse into the confined world of someone grappling with a quarter-life crisis.

The album was recorded in Kato’s bedroom during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, with invaluable remote assistance from Inne Eysermans.

Kato Vanackere creates audio, music, and theater. She studied Woordkunst at the royal conservatoire in Antwerp, and has been doing pretty fine recording birds in her spare time. In her work she sings about loneliness, farewells, moving forward, the sea and the city.

By Eve-Marie Bouché (August 2022)

“I discovered that I had magical powers, the powers to transform the world’s soundtrack, to make it a better place to live…”

Winner of Best Short at Grand Prix Nova (2023) and Third Prize at the UK International Radio Drama festival (2023)

Eve-Marie Bouché (Paris, France) At first, she was a dramatic author, then she started writing texts for radio dramas (Radio France). But when she learned how to edit sounds, it was an epiphany, the discovery of another form of writing. She can’t stop any more!

By Rúnar Snær Reynisson for RÚV (2017)

First created for the Rás 1 (Channel 1) summer program Sumarmál, played at the 2023 International Features Conference.