Kim Chakanetsa meets two pioneering cinematographers who bring stories about women to the big screen. Rachel Morrison is the first female cinematographer to be nominated for an Oscar for her work on Mudbound, and she’s the only woman who’s ever shot a superhero blockbuster movie (Black Panther). Rachel now focuses on strong female characters: she worked on Seberg, a biopic on the iconic actor Jean Seberg, and is currently shooting a movie about Claressa ‘T-Rex’ Shields, the first woman to win an Olympic gold for boxing. Lilia Sellami is a French and Tunisian director of photography and camera operator. She worked on international Hollywood productions, like Star Wars and Men in Black. She is now based in Northern Africa where she collaborates with female directors to tell the stories of women fighting for their rights. A feature she’s recently worked on, Dying to Divorce, was the UK’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2022 Academy Awards.Produced by Alice Gioia(Image: (L), Rachel Morrison, credit Rachel Porter. (R), Lilia Sellami, courtesy of Lilia Sellami)

Our lives, how we spend our money and the decisions we make, are often guided by the advertisements we see - whether that's on the streets we walk around or on our screens. Kim Chakanetsa talks to two women from Brazil and the UK who are in the business of influencing our choices.Ana Balarin is co-executive creative director at Wieden & Kennedy Portland, US. She works with her husband, Hermeti. After training as a physiotherapist and moving to the UK from Brazil, she switched to a career in advertising. As executive creative director she oversaw work for clients such as Ikea, KFC and Stella Artois - and ran projects like #FreeTheFeed, confronting taboos around breastfeeding in public. Imogen Tazzyman is one of only 3% of female executive creative directors in the UK. An ECD at McCann Manchester she's overseeing adverts for high street retailers like Aldi and Matalan. She's passionate about encouraging more women into the industry and supporting them to rise to the top: working on the first ever creative apprenticeship scheme, to open up the industry to those without a degree, and Represent Creative - an initiative using social media help those without experience or family links get a look-in.Produced by Jane Thurlow(Image: (L) Imogen Tazzyman, credit Craft, Manchester. (R) Ana Balarin credit Sofija Vujanic.)

Family businesses play a crucial role in economies across the world. It is estimated that they account for more than half of global GDP – but few family firms are led by women. Kim Chakanetsa meets two women who’ve become the first females in their family to take over at the top.Caroline Fattal Fakhoury is on the Board of Directors of the Fattal Group in Lebanon. The firm started as a small company in Syria in 1897, and it went on to become one of the leading distributors in the Middle East, delivering food, beauty and pharmaceutical products across eight countries. She was the first woman to join the family business in 100 years and was named one of the region’s most powerful women by Forbes Middle East. She’s also the founder of Stand for Women, an NGO supporting women’s economic empowerment. Priyanka Gupta Zielinski is the executive director of MPIL Steel Structures, a steel manufacturing company with headquarters in India and the UAE. Priyanka joined her father’s company in 2008, when she was in her 20s - one of the very few women working in this sector. Under her lead, the company was completely transformed, grew and branched out in other countries. Priyanka wrote a book - The Ultimate Family Business Survival Guide - and is a member of Women in Family Business, an initiative providing support and networking opportunities to women around the world. Produced by Alice Gioia. (Image: (L) Caroline Fattal, credit Michel Rawadi. (R) Priyanka Gupta courtesy Priyanka Gupta.)

How can we help people with dementia? Kim Chakanetsa talks to two women from Singapore and the UK about how they’ve adapted to living with the condition and why they now want to help others understand dementia better.Wendy Mitchell was diagnosed with young onset dementia at the age of 58. She wrote a bestselling memoir, Somebody I Used to Know about the slow realisation that she was changing, and the adaptations she needed to make to her life to cope. She's a vocal advocate for people with Alzheimer's and other dementia and promotes better understanding and care. Surprised by the lack of information available to her and her family, she's written a second book, What I Wish People Knew About Dementia.Emily Ong is from East Malaysia but now lives in Singapore. She first noticed something was wrong when she forgot how to make French toast, but it took her years to get a proper diagnosis for young onset dementia. Now 54 years old, she advocates for greater understanding of the disease and belongs to the Voices for Hope programme, helping people who are newly diagnosed or already have dementia. She says it's rare for Asians to speak about dementia and it's important to be open and spread understanding.Produced by Jane Thurlow(Image: (L) Wendy Mitchell, credit Jo Hanley. (R) Emily Ong, credit Clara Tan/The Perfect Statement)

Of the many different items of clothing a woman will wear throughout her life, there is perhaps none loaded with so much significance as her wedding dress, and finding the perfect one can be an enormous source of stress. Kim Chakanetsa meets two wedding designers who help women dial down that pressure by helping bring their bridal visions to life. Yasmine Yeya is the founder of Masion Yeya, a couture atelier in Dubai. She was raised in Egypt by a family of French descent and her heritage is reflected in her elegant and unique style, which is a blend of European and Middle Eastern influences. Nneka Alexander is the founder of Brides by Nona. What started out as a dress making favour for her twin sister has turned into a sought-after bridal business with its signature gowns of intricate detail and bead work. She’s originally from Nigeria and she’s based in Atlanta, in the United States. Produced by Alice Gioia(Image: wedding dresses, courtesy of Maison Yeya and Brides by Nona.)

It is estimated that one in four pregnancies will end in a miscarriage. But despite being a common occurrence, this topic is still shrouded in secrecy, stigma and shame. Kim Chakanetsa meets two women who are using their first-hand experience to help other people heal. Wanjiru Kihusa is a maternal health advocate from Kenya who lost two of her three children through miscarriage. She’s the founder of Still A Mum, a charity offering support to parents who have lost their babies. She also trains health care workers, religious leaders and managers to better support grieving parents. Paula Ávila-Guillen is a human rights lawyer from Colombia and the Executive Director at the Women’s Equality Center, a non-profit based in New York. Since 2014, Paula has been working in El Salvador, a country where a strict abortion ban led to 181 women being imprisoned after having obstetric emergencies – including in cases where they said they had suffered miscarriages or stillbirths. In 2019, Paula had a miscarriage herself – an experience that brought her even closer to the women she works with.Produced by Alice Gioia(Image: (L) Paula Ávila-Guillen, credit Pablo Salgado. (R) Wanjiru Kihusa, courtesy Wanjiru Kihusa)

Dry stone walling is an ancient craft that goes back thousands of years and remains an important means of enclosing fields in rural areas of Europe, and of constructing terraces for agriculture in more mountainous regions. But it’s a craft, along with other countryside skills, that’s practiced by fewer people these days. Kim Chakanetsa speaks to two women from the US and Italy about their passion for building beautiful walls.Serena Cattaneo is from Genoa Northern Italy where the walls helped establish terraces for olive and vine groves in the mountains. She started dry stone walling five years ago and now, as well as working restoring walls, she also teaches the skill at workshops. She’s passionate about the trade and keen to develop a women’s network as she’s yet to meet another female waller in Italy.Whitney Brown was 26 years old when she met a dry stone waller at a festival in Washington, within weeks she was out on the hill with him in Wales wielding a hammer and learning everything she could about the craft. She’s since taken her skills back to the United States where she teaches others, but returns as often as she can to work in the UK.Produced by Jane Thurlow(Image: (L) Serena Cattaneo, credit Serena Cattaneo. (R) Whitney Brown, courtesy Whitney Brown. Background: wall in Sori, credit Serena Cattaneo.)

Mountain rescue volunteers are a rare breed: they’re on call 24/7, ready to risk their lives to save hikers and skiers who get stuck on the mountains. Kim Chakanetsa meets two women who lead perilous rescue missions in Canada and in the UK.Kirsty Pallas is a mountaineering and climbing instructor based in Scotland. In 2014 she joined the Oban Mountain Rescue Team, where she’s a callout manager and a training officer. She’s also the founder of Our Shared Outdoors, an organisation set up to tackle and change the lack of diversity in the outdoors and promote underrepresented groups.Kayla Brolly is an emergency room nurse and a crew member with North Shore Rescue, the busiest volunteer search and rescue organisation in Canada. She’s been involved in countless rescue operations in the popular hiking and skiing mountains north of Vancouver. In December 2017, whilst taking part in a delicate rescue mission on a steep slope, she suffered a severe head injury.Produced by Alice Gioia for BBC World Service.

Men run most of world's cultural institutions, but in recent years more women have been given top jobs at leading galleries and museums. Kim Chakanetsa speaks to two women from Australia and Germany about the importance of getting a woman's view on what's worth displaying and history worth preserving.Margot Neale Ngawagurrawa is an Aboriginal Australian curator and one of the world's leading experts on Aboriginal history and culture. She's Head Indigenous Curator at the National Museum Australia and has spent seven years bringing together historical and cultural stories of the Aboriginal peoples which till now have only existed in oral form. The resulting exhibition, Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters is now on a global tour – and in Plymouth, UK till the end of February 2022.Dr Stephanie Rosenthal has been director of Gropius Bau in Berlin, Germany since 2018. She studied art history and her work since then has focused on contemporary art and performance. The Gropius Bau has recently tackled the subjects of humanity’s relationship to nature, exploitative extraction processes and ‘how plants practice politics’.Produced by Jane Thurlow(Image: (L) Stephanie Rosenthal, credit Mathias Voelzke. (R) Margot Neale Ngawagurrawa, courtesy Margot Neale Ngawagurrawa. Background: Maruku Arts by Niningka Lewis.)

Sound is everywhere around us: from blockbuster Hollywood films to live music events, from broadcasting the news to speaking with astronauts in space. For every broadcast, big or small, there are engineers and sound designers working behind the scenes to make sure you get the highest audio quality possible. Kim Chakanetsa explores the world of audio production with two of the best in this field. Nina Hartstone is a supervising sound editor based in the UK. Over the course of her career Nina has received some of the industry’s highest awards - including an Oscar and a BAFTA Award for the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody in 2019. She is also known for her work on the films Gravity, Cats and An Education. Alexandria Perryman is a live broadcast engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center, where she supports astronauts with all-things audio: from helping them communicate with mission control to facilitating media interviews. She won an Emmy Award for her work on the coverage of SpaceX’s Demonstration Mission 1 – the first orbital test of the Dragon 2 spacecraft.Produced by Alice Gioia. Sound editing by Sue Maillot.(Image: (L) Alexandria Perryman, credit Norah Moran/NASA. (R) Nina Hartstone, credit Getty Images. The background image is the waveform of the opening six seconds of an episode of The Conversation.)