Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Gee’s Bend (also known as Boykin) is an isolated hamlet encircled by the Alabama River, with a population of around 200 people, most of them African American. The tight-knit community has been known for its quilting culture for decades, including its role in the Freedom Quilting Bee – a cooperative based in nearby Rehobeth that was founded in 1966 to give Black women a means to earn their own income. The initiative later helped to bring wider recognition to the region’s distinctively colourful and eclectic quilting style, including an exhibition at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. The short documentary While I Yet Live by the Los Angeles-based director Maris Curran is a rhythmic and gently reverential glimpse into the quilting community of Gee’s Bend today, offering a sojourn with five quilters as they sew, sing and reflect on the ongoing struggle for civil rights and their love of community and craft.
Director: Maris Curran
Producer: Jon Coplon
video
Childhood and adolescence
Marmar is living through a devastating war – but she’d rather tell you about her new dress
8 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
The ‘cloud’ requires heaps of energy to stay aloft. Could synthetic DNA be the answer?
12 minutes
video
Art
A puppeteer makes sense of an overwhelming world by shrinking it down to size
5 minutes
video
History
There are fragments of Romani Gypsy history all over the UK – if one knows where to look
3 minutes
video
Biology
Brilliant dots of colour form exquisite patterns in this close-up of butterfly wings
3 minutes
video
Anthropology
Does Mogi’s future lie with her horses on the Mongolian steppe, or in the city?
16 minutes
video
Genetics
Why it took a century to work out that humans interbred with Neanderthals
22 minutes
video
Art
The sprawling mural that depicts an unflinching people’s history of Los Angeles
7 minutes
video
Personality
A ‘dumpster archeologist’ reconstructs strangers’ stories via what they’ve discarded
14 minutes