The Documentary Podcast

Gwen was brought up as a strict evangelical Christian. She was taught that women needed to control the way they dressed and acted to control the behaviour of men. When she was sexually abused, she believed it was her fault. But when she first stepped into a nudist community, she felt free. She was naked, with other naked people, and her nakedness was not making other people molest her. She learnt that her body was not something she had to hide. The BBC’s Josie Le Vay visits Gwen at her home in a nudist community in Florida, USA.

How has Finland survived so long as an independent European country, up close to Russia, its aggressive neighbour? Over the decades it’s learnt to live with both the Soviet Union and then post-communist Russia next door and to benefit from the cross-border trade it offered. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed attitudes in Finland, seen most clearly in its decision to join Nato. In this edition of Assignment, we report from the border towns of Lappeenranta and Imatra – which have gained economically from Russians crossing into Finland as tourists, for trade, to buy property and simply to go shopping. Now Russian tourist visas have been banned by the Finnish Government and the local mayor says the region is losing a million euros every day. The country’s army has male conscription, defence spending is at NATO levels and Finland’s cities have underground shelters to protect its population.Caroline Bayley looks at Finland’s relationship with Russia – past and present – and asks what’s next for these uneasy neighbours. Producer/presenter Caroline Bayley Editor Penny Murphy Studio Engineer Rod Farquhar Production co-ordinator Helena Warwick-Cross(Photo: Almost deserted border post on Finland’s border with Russia. Credit: Caroline Bayley)

Bulk carriers are the ships that keep the modern world going - like the MV Raeda and the MV Olivian Confidence carrying grain from Ukraine to Turkey, and flour to Afghanistan and Yemen. Zig zagging across the oceans for months at a time, bulk carriers keep us all going even in times of war and pandemic. ‘If it didn’t grow in your garden,’ says broker Aysu Gurgan, ‘A bulk carrier brought it to you.’ Steel, sand, coal, cement - the very fabric of the modern world - all of it reaches us on bulkers. Unseen by the very populations that rely on them, each bulker is also a home to international crews who spend half their lives on board.

In March 2003, the United States led an invasion of Iraq that would topple Saddam Hussein's regime, but would have far-reaching consequences for the next two decades. No-one knows exactly how many Iraqis have died as a result of the war. Estimates are all in the hundreds of thousands. The political instability that followed saw the rise of jihadist extremists including Islamic State. There was a civil war and the spread of violent sectarianism across the region. Host James Reynolds brings together Iraqis to share how trauma continues to impact their lives.

It took Salimata Sylla three hours to get to the away fixture she was due to play with her basketball team mates from the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers. But it was only a few minutes before the match started that she learned she was going to sit the game out on the bench. Despite playing for more than 10 years in the French Championship, the federation that controls her sport decided to apply the rule that forbids female basketball players from wearing the hijab. Reporter Claire Jones goes to Paris to meet Salimata to find out how she can resolve her wish to express her Muslim faith by wearing a hijab with her desire to play the sport she loves.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is destroying lives all over the United States. Manufactured illegally and at a huge profit by drug cartels in Mexico, it’s smuggled across the border into southern California and Arizona. The director at one entry point on the border acknowledges that they’re looking for needles in a haystack. And she says that they drug organisations have more money than they do.In the second of a two-part series, Assignment crosses into the US from Mexico to run a rule over the devastation this lethal drug has left in its wake in San Diego County. Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly Producer: Tim Mansel(Photo: The wall between the US and Mexico from the Mexican side. The city of San Diego is in the distance. Credit: Tim Mansel).

BBC journalist Ramadan Younes investigates the world of genetic eye disease ‘treatments’, where some practitioners claim to cure the incurable. Living with his own visual impairment, Ramadan sets out to explore how clinics around the world, from Sudan to Gaza and from Russia to the United States, target predominantly Arab patients by advertising, selling and conducting procedures that are at best ineffective and can at worst cause total blindness.Producer: Matt Pintus Editor: Clare Fordham

The storming of the Brazilian Parliament and Congress by the supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro came almost two years to the day that Donald Trump’s supporters did the same in the United States. And the two events shared another similarity; both sets of supporters were egged-on by social media posts, and mobilised by private messages on apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. They are examples of how technology is being used to erode democracy – but can it also be used to strengthen it?

In the aftermath of the disastrous war in Iraq, the lesson seemed clear: the West should never intervene in foreign conflicts. But then came the Syrian civil war, and the invasion of Ukraine, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. So 20 years on, Caroline Wyatt – who has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan and Russia – takes us back to the choice of horrors the West faced in 2003, and examines how the legacy of that fateful decision shapes foreign policy today, for good or ill.

Everything Everywhere All at Once ensured it was a historic night at the Oscars. And in doing so it put a spotlight on Asian Americans. The film, which centres around a fictional family of Asian Americans, received seven awards with Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh becoming the first Asian woman to win the best actress Oscar. Catherine Byaruhanga hears stories from Asian-Americans, including three actors who discuss attitudes and prejudice towards them in the film industry.