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The South Korean violinist Hyung Joon Won has held a singular – and perhaps quixotic – dream for the past seven years: a joint concert by North and South Korean musicians at the world’s most contentious border. At 160 miles long and 2.5 miles wide, the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separates the two countries at the 38th parallel. On this narrow strip, the threat of all-out war hangs heavy – and anyone with a violin case or a film camera gets short shrift. The South Korean-born filmmaker Catherine Kyungeun Lee follows Hyung Joon as his plan for a show of peace at the border teeters between success and collapse, at great personal cost to him. Filmed in 2015, her documentary traces the confluence between fraught geopolitics and all-too-human struggles on the peninsula.
Lee is now directing two documentaries in East Africa. One tells the story of a child-soldier who became a Harvard graduate and activist who was jailed in South Sudan, and the other follows the woman in charge of realising Somalia’s first democratic election in 50 years, despite seemingly insurmountable opposition.

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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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Philosophy of mind
Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no
5 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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Love and friendship
A decade after his wife was swept away in a tsunami, Yasuo still searches the sea
9 minutes