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In a nearly wordless sequence, the short documentary The Same captures men and women in four of Serbia’s largest prisons in daily routines of eating, working, socialising, grooming and moving mechanically through their environment. While some of these activities, such as baking bread or tending to horses, seem more desirable than others, the constricted nature of the scenes lends the montage a disquieting character. The Serbian director Dejan Petrović augments these images with a soundscape crafted from the rhythms of prison life – the key-clanking and beeps of guards moving through a metal detector, meals moving on and off of trays in a mess hall, sewing machines whirring on a prison factory floor. Despite the film’s alienating effect, there’s also a perhaps dissonant beauty to the images, which are artfully framed and often imbued with metaphor. The result is a complex meditation on identity and individuality, conformity and freedom.
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The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes
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Art
David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white
15 minutes
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Love and friendship
When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love
7 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?
13 minutes
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Biology
A dazzling slice-by-slice exploration of wood exposes hidden patterns and hues
2 minutes
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Family life
In Rwanda, Sébastien finds traces of personal history in the wake of national tragedy
21 minutes
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Dance and theatre
Leaf through Shakespeare’s First Folio for a riveting journey into theatre history
13 minutes
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Architecture
Modern architecture should embrace – not ignore or repel – the nonhuman world
8 minutes
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Nations and empires
The strange tale of how mangoes became hallowed objects in Maoist China
6 minutes