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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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Rituals and celebrations
A whale hunt is an act of prayer for an Inuit community north of the Arctic Circle
8 minutes
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Music
The peculiar beauty of a song caught between composition and improvisation
3 minutes
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Rituals and celebrations
A beginner’s guide to a joyful Persian tradition of spring renewal and rebirth
3 minutes
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Politics and government
How it looked to Afghan women to see the Taliban return to power
33 minutes
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Love and friendship
Love looks a bit different for a chain-smoking couple in a small apartment
11 minutes
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Biography and memoir
Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act
13 minutes
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The ancient world
The six priestesses who kept the flame of ancient Rome alight at risk of death
5 minutes
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Engineering
A close-up look at electronic paper reveals its exquisite patterns – and limitations
9 minutes
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Architecture
West Africa was once an architectural laboratory. Is it time for a revival?
12 minutes