Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
The city of Kangbashi in northern China is empty. Although its owners continue to make a profit by speculating on rising property values, the city – complete with towering apartment complexes and elaborate recreation centres – is almost completely uninhabited. As the camera explores deserted rooftops and empty streets, a narrator begins a story – a modern fable about a cathedral built of money. Written by Michael Ende, the author of the children’s book The Neverending Story, the tale describes a church full of money-worshippers, for whom ‘Money is Truth’ and ‘Truth is a Commodity’.
Director: Konrad Kaestner
Producer: Fabian Gasmia
video
Fairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
video
Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes
video
Animals and humans
Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat
19 minutes
video
Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
video
Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
video
Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes
video
Information and communication
‘Astonished and somewhat terrified’ – Victorians’ reactions to the phonograph
36 minutes
video
Engineering
From simple motors to levitating trains – how design shapes innovation
23 minutes
video
Home
How an artist transformed a dilapidated hunting lodge into a house made of dreams
8 minutes