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Breathing is at the essence of being human, but not just because it keeps us alive. Like laughter and facial expressions, breathing is something of a global language, capable of communicating a surprisingly wide and nuanced range of emotions without a single word. This collection video from The Mercadantes, the husband-and-wife filmmakers Daniel and Katina Mercadante in California, explores the human breath and its innumerable forms – from the first gasping cries of a newborn to the sighed relief of a well-earned chance to rest.
Director: Daniel Mercadante
Producer: Jed Hubbard
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
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Film and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes
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War and peace
A frontline soldier’s moving account of the fabled ‘Christmas truce’ of 1914
12 minutes
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Bioethics
What a 1970 experiment reveals about the possibility and perils of ‘head transplants’
6 minutes
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Animals and humans
The wild tale of a young animal keeper, an angry tiger and a torn circle net
10 minutes
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Technology and the self
Why single Chinese women are freezing their eggs in California
24 minutes
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Childhood and adolescence
The police camp where tween girls enter a sisterhood of law and order
28 minutes
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Astronomy
The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky
5 minutes
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Knowledge
Why it takes more than a lifetime to truly understand a single meadow
11 minutes