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When it first made headlines in 2010, Jason Leach’s UK-based company And Vinyly – which presses the ashes of the deceased into vinyl records for loved ones wishing to hold onto their memory – appeared to be something of a macabre novelty. But there might be more to preserving the departed (quite literally) on records than first meets the eye – and ear. Hearing Madge explores how Leach’s venture was given new meaning when he was approached by a man looking to save his mother’s recollections that he had recorded shortly before her death. Surprisingly touching, Andrea Lewis’s short documentary is both a profile of an unusual business and a thought-provoking contemplation of the ways we chose to remember the dead.
Director: Andrea Lewis
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Social psychology
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Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
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Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
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Values and beliefs
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Consciousness and altered states
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Meaning and the good life
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
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Wellbeing
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Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
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