The Documentary Podcast

When BBC Mundo journalist Ana Maria Roura found out she couldn't get pregnant, she decided to turn the camera on herself and document her struggle to become a parent through in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. Her documentary, Infertile, is available in Spanish and in English. Plus, the science of super-centenarians, with BBC World Service journalist Fernando Duarte.Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Vast areas of Los Angeles have been destroyed since these fires began on 7 January. Thousands of homes and businesses have been lost, and tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate. We hear from Kelly, who had just minutes to gather a few possessions before her home was destroyed, and DJ describes seeing a nearby hillside glowing, the sky lit by flames, as he and his family fled. Teddy whose family had to abandon their house and lost their restaurant in the fire says “We landed in an Airbnb down in Mar Vista with our sons and grandkids,” Two firefighters from Los Angeles County Fire Department share their experiences of co-ordinating the response to the fires and explain why they are so difficult to put out.

Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, once told Michael Goldfarb of people going to their deaths at Auschwitz asking who will say Kaddish for me? Kaddish is the Jewish prayer for the dead. On the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz' liberation Michael Goldfarb explores the origins and meaning of Kaddish. How did a prayer for the dead, in which death is not mentioned, become the centrepiece of Jewish mourning?

Around the world, prison populations are bursting at the seams, but in some European countries, they are closing and reoffending rates are down. The trend has been attributed to a novel approach to justice, one that places the mental health of offenders at its heart. Forensic psychologist Dr Jenny Okolo investigates whether prison systems around the world could benefit from a similar approach. Jenny speaks to Dr Marrit de Vries from the Dutch Institute for Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology, to learn about a novel approach to mental health intervention pioneered in the Netherlands. And in Sweden, we hear from Dr Martin Lardén from Karolinska Institutet’s Center for violence prevention, who discusses the efficacy of the Risk-Need-Responsivity model, an approach which positions the offender at the heart of the strategies devised to address the causes of their crime. And Rivelino Rigters, who draws on lived experience from within the criminal justice system, reflects on how a kinder, community-focused approach could stop crime from happening in the first place.