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The London-based filmmaker Charlotte Regan’s charming documentary No Ball Games tracks the nuances of play between young friends in three working-class neighbourhoods across the UK. Capturing the joy of an aimless summer’s day spent finding fun, the film celebrates the instinctual ability of children to cook up their own entertainment from scratch – including, in this case, wresting directing duties from the filmmakers from time to time. With an immersive style, Regan’s film transports viewers into a world of resourcefulness, invention and fun that’s rarely accessed – and perhaps even forgotten – by those burdened by the quotidian concerns of adulthood.
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Technology and the self
The commodified childhood – scenes from two sisters’ lives in the creator economy
14 minutes
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Anthropology
For an Amazonian female shaman, ayahuasca ceremonies are a rite and a business
30 minutes
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Sports and games
Havana’s streets become racetracks in this exhilarating portrait of children at play
5 minutes
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Spirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes
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Language and linguistics
Why Susan listens to recordings of herself speaking a language she no longer remembers
5 minutes
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Home
How an artist transformed a dilapidated hunting lodge into a house made of dreams
8 minutes
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Family life
The migrants missing in Mexico, and the mothers who won’t stop searching for them
21 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes