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The economy of Bakersfield, California is driven by oil and agriculture. The vast majority of the strenuous manual labour in these California farms and oil fields is carried out by Latino immigrants, many of them undocumented. Artfully captured by the US filmmaker Chris Filippone, the acclaimed short documentary How to Breathe in Kern County follows some of these labourers from the hard toil of their workdays to the dark night of Bakersfield’s back roads, where they find ‘the song of a world without work’ in street-racing cars.
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Stories and literature
Robert Frost’s poetic reflection on youth, as read in his unforgettable baritone
5 minutes
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Sex and sexuality
After a sextortion scam, Eugene conducts an unblushing survey of masturbation
14 minutes
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Film and visual culture
‘Bags here are rarely innocent’ – how filmmakers work around censorship in Iran
8 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Closed captions suck. Here’s one artist’s inventive project to make them better
8 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
A rare female scholar of the Roman Empire, Hypatia lived and died as a secular voice
5 minutes
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Architecture
The celebrated architect who took inspiration from sitting, waiting and contemplating
29 minutes
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Anthropology
Why are witchcraft accusations so common across human societies?
4 minutes
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Subcultures
Drop into London’s eclectic skate scene, where newbies and old-timers find community
5 minutes
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Technology and the self
A deepfake porn victim confronts the pain of having her likeness stolen and vandalised
19 minutes