At the closed border
Field Recordings Podcast, April 2020
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A field recording podcast curated by Eleanor McDowall. In April of 2020 I made this contribution:
“All Czech borders with neighbouring countries have remained closed since the middle of March (precisely since the 14th of March). The only traffic allowed through/past are trucks transporting goods. These closed borders remind everyone – including me who wasn’t even here to live it – of an otherwise distant past of a closed communist Czechoslovakia. Hidden behind a row of trees together with my girlfriend Katka on the 4th of April, I crossed the border by foot; and sitting behind some bushes just next to the transit I recorded the chattering of the border guards, the controlling of the trucks as well as the periodic silence – silence in the sense of bird song, insects and eventually my own breath – of this closed border.” |
Photo: Kateřina Nedbálková
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DaS KAPITAL - A very strange story
BBC Radio 3, December 2017
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"My son, Tadeas, is 5. The first thing he does when I turn on the recorder is ask if I'm going to tell a very strange story" And thus the story of a rather peculiar, red parrot bought in a toy store in Prague, has begun.
Authors: Brit Jensen and Martin Ožvold. |
The grand plan
Czech Radio, February 2016 – translated into English at Radioatlas, November 2016
Photo: Nico Brooks – click on photo to visit flickr account
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Claire lives in her house on an island in Canada. She’s 87 years old and searching for love. A couple of years ago, she signed up to a dating agency. But there’s one problem: There are no men. Or as Claire puts it, ‘The men are either sick or dead.’
Claire writes a column in the newspaper about her loneliness and hopeless search for a relationship. By chance, Brit comes across it and an idea begins to take form. In fact it’s not just an idea but a grand plan about how Claire may finally find love. By Brit Jensen, sound: Jiří Slavičinský
Nominated for Prix Europa 2016. Number 5 on shortlist.
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Told Untold
Ironcurtainproject.eu and Czech Radio, march-november 2016
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When a regime changes over night, certain stories become homeless. Logic and language change, new taboos form. ToldUntold is a project inviting Czechs to tell their own untold stories from pre-89 Czechoslovakia.
Author: Brit Jensen, sound: Roman Špála
ToldUntold is a cooperation between the dutch Ironcurtainproject.eu and Czech national Radio.
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Yusra, swim for your life
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BBC 4 and BBC World Service, august-september 2016
This is a story which has made news around the world - the teenage Syrian refugee who swam to survive, and was then selected to compete in the pool for the refugee team at the Olympic Games in Rio.
Czech journalist Magdaléna Sodomková met Yusra and her sister Sara in Serbia in august 2015. Together with photographer Lâm Duc Hiên she followed Yusra as she travelled on foot to the Hungarian border, eventually making her way to Germany, and beginning a new life in Berlin. We also follow her training, her selection for the Games, and her experiences in Rio. Autors of the original Czech production: Magdaléna Sodomková and Brit Jensen. BBC producers: Clare Walker and Tom Alban.
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Photo: Lâm Duc Hiên – www.lamduchien.com
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I have been to Maidan today
ABC Radio National, Australia, 21/9 2014
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What happened on Maidan square in Kiev earlier this year? Why has it brought Russia and The West to the brink of war?
Come behind the barricades to meet the Ukrainian protesters who occupied Independence Square in freezing temperatures, withstanding violent clashes with police. Our guide is Oleh, a young lawyer, who kept an audio diary during the events. He tentatively joined the protests after work most days but he was afraid of the violence and what might happen. We meet his friends; Svitlana who bravely told a local government official to resign, Inna who prepared food for the freezing protesters, Syomkin who gathered stones and Molotov cocktails to throw at the dreaded Burkut Special Forces, Alex from Eastern Ukraine who desperately wants order restored and Oleh’s uncle, a Police Colonel, who crossed the barricades to protect the protesters. Author: Brit P. Jensen, executive producer: Claudia Taranto, sound engineer: Mark Don |