Podcast: Radio Atlas

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.

By Stephen Schwartz for DR (19th December 1992)

Familiar surroundings transform and friends and acquaintances turn into enemies.

Contains content that listeners may find distressing.

Sniper was the winner of the 1993 Prix Italia for Documentary.

In the transcript for the Prix Italia the producers described the process of making this feature –

“While researching Sniper, Stephen Schwartz discovered that while plenty of people talked aboutsnipers, very few had actually talked to a sniper. So he got in touch with a colleague, Boro Kontic, in Sarajevo via the EBU satellite, which was the only secure line into the radio station in Sarajevo, and asked him to do the interviews with the snipers. When the tapes were ready they were smuggled out by an Irish TV man, who mailed them from Frankfurt during a stop-over. Much of the live sound in this programme was taken from TV coverage of the war in Sarajevo. The sounds were then processed digitally – like the rest of the programme.”

Directed by Stephen Schwartz

Recordings in Sarajevo by Boro Kontic

Sound by Frank Lindeskov

Translation by Jonathan Sydenham

Stephen Schwartz was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1940, but moved to Denmark from 1961. He died in 2013. His programmes include ‘We People’ – a feature series from 1964 to 1979 – The Mind’s Eye (winner of the Prix Italia, 1982), Notes from a City Dump, The Amber Gatherer, Clouds in Flight and The Night Watchman – the documentary where he pioneered his landmark interview technique known as the ‘moments interview’ or the ‘full Schwartz’. You can learn more about it here.

By Phoebe McIndoe and Marta Medvešek (2023)

Made in 1929 to accompany silent movies, with 913 pipes and 66 registers, it was the biggest cinema organ in Germany.