Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
The phrase ‘a safe space’ emerged from the women’s and LGBT movements of the 1960s and ’70s, and has since been taken up by a broad swathe of identity-based communities. But it has also increasingly been viewed with derision by those who think that it represents an overly sensitive culture. In their short documentary The Swimming Club, the UK directors Cecilia Golding and Nick Finegan offer a sweet yet staunch defence of the importance of safe spaces, in this case the pool used by the London Trans and Gender Non-conforming Swimming Group (TAGS). The film profiles several members as they describe how swimming together – including wearing the swimsuits of their choice without prejudice – has allowed them to find a sense of freedom and ‘serene power’ that rarely exist in the world outside the pool.
Via Short of the Week.
Directors: Cecilia Golding, Nick Finegan
video
Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
10 minutes
video
Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes
video
Engineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
15 minutes
video
Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes
video
History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes
video
Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
video
Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes
video
Stories and literature
Two variants of a Hindu myth come alive in an animated ode to Indian storytelling
14 minutes
video
Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes