Erin Anderson, USA
Erin Anderson is a writer, audio producer, and documentary artist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA). She is co-creator and producer of Cement City, named one of The New York Times top ten “Best Podcasts of 2024,” and an ASME National Magazine Award Finalist. She teaches narrative audio and nonfiction in the Writing Program and the Film and Media Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Podcast: Cement City
Cement City is an independently produced ten-episode series about day-to-day life in a forgotten former steel town. Donora, Pennsylvania is home to 4,650 people. It has no schools, no banks, no grocery stores, no gas stations. It has a Smog Museum and a mayor named Piglet. The series follows Erin and her collaborator, magazine journalist Jeanne Marie Laskas, as they stumble off the highway into this town they’ve never heard of, buy a house there, and stay for three years. Cement City offers a case study in long-form immersive documentary: the ethics of embedding in a community over time; the challenge of balancing narrative drive with patient, immersive scene-building; and the art of making a forgotten place matter to a listener who has never heard of it and has no reason to care.
Franziska Sophie Dorau, Austria
Franziska Sophie Dorau, born in Vienna, is an author and director of audio-documentaries. After studying Comparative Literature in Vienna and Paris, she started to work as a radio journalist for the Austrian national broadcast´s cultural and informational channel Ö1. She focuses primarily on socio-political issues, as well as portraits of authors and artists. Her documentaries have been nominated for numerous international awards. Among others, she has received the Prix Europa (2012), the CIVIS Media Award (2020), and the Premio Ondas (2024). In 2024, she was awarded the Axel Eggebrecht Award by the Leipzig Media Foundation for her complete body of work. She recently worked as a dramaturgical consultant for the Berlin based film production company “Komplizen Film”. She lives in Berlin.
Documentary: We Are at War. The Rehearsal Is Cancelled.
Kyiv´s Symphony Orchestra in Search of a Second Home.
In April 2022, the renowned Kyiv Symphony Orchestra sets off on a tour to Western Europe. This trip is different from the usual tours. Two months earlier, Putin's army had invaded Ukraine; a brutal attack - also on the country's culture. The orchestra members' mission is to promote and defend their culture in Europe. But it soon becomes clear that they will not be able to return to their homeland. The journey becomes an exile. Through a chain of coincidences, the orchestra ends up in Gera, Thuringia. The city provides them with living quarters and a rehearsal room, and the Berlin Philharmonic takes over the patronage. The musicians from Ukraine can initially breathe a sigh of relief. From Gera, they travel to the most important concert halls in Europe and celebrate successes. But in May 2023, Kyiv cancels the funding. And the Jobcenter in Gera is putting more and more pressure on the musicians to accept job offers from German orchestras or music schools. The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra is threatened with dissolution. For the male musicians, this would mean a return to Ukraine, where they could be drafted into the war. When this scenario almost becomes reality, an unexpected offer arrives that sheds new light on their future. In her moving documentary, Franziska Sophie Dorau tells of the unwavering strength and passion of an orchestra that fights for its music and cultural heritage against all odds.
Saška Rakef, Slovenia
Saška Rakef is a playwright and directress. She is interested in the influence of emancipated musical composition on the method and aesthetics of directing. She researches sensorial language, a physical experience invoked by sound including the sonority of words, the staging methods translating the principles of musical composition into directing and dramaturgy procedures, and the writing processes of contemporary text for radio and theatre. An important part of her creativity is content for babies and infants. She was a project leader of the B-AIR project consortium, exploring how people and the surrounding world conceptualize and experience sound; connecting artistic, scientific and journalistic methods of research and creation. She works as a radio director at Radio Slovenia. She teaches radio play and radio directing at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television, Ljubljana. A variety of domestic and foreign festivals have showcased her work, for which she has received several nominations and awards (Prix Italia Special Mention, Branislav B Cubrilović Award, Second Prize at Prix Marulić, nominations for Prix Europa, Palma Ars Acustica and more).
Documentary: Journey at The Edge of The Night
Dr Evgen Bavčar has a special ritual. For over forty years, he has been recording the nightingale singing on May nights in his hometown of Lokavec. Under the nocturnal cloak, in duet with the nightingale, the story unfolds into a narrative of the nightingales' blinding so they shall sing in perpetuity – a reflection on blindness as social castration, on existential proximities and distances, the position of the blind throughout time and the question: why should the pleasure of the night not be equal to the pleasure of the day? The night journey to the break of day raises profound questions about human existence, differences, the environment, freedom, intimate desire for duality, the Sun and a new spring.
Xavier Yvon, France
Xavier Yvon is an experienced journalist and audio editor with a career spanning major French newsrooms. He currently leads the Reportages Department at France Inter, overseeing national and international coverage. Previously, he served as Editor‑in‑Chief for Podcasts at L’Express, where he created and hosted La Loupe, a daily deep‑dive news podcast. From 2016 to 2020, he was Europe 1’s US Correspondent in New York. His original audio work includes acclaimed series such as Taylor Swift, le monde, ma fille et moi and Les Petites Voix. He has been recognized with major awards including the Prix Europa Special Jury Mention, the Prix Varenne, and the Bayeux War Correspondents Prize.
Podcast: Taylor Swift, the World, My Daughter and I
A dad wants to know : how could his 13-year-old daughter succumb to the Taylor Swift frenzy, like hundreds of millions of fans around the world ? To understand, he goes with her to a concert, and then decides to take her on a road trip following the star’s footsteps. From Nashville to Washington, via her native Pennsylvania, they travel through Taylor Swift’s universe, meeting fans, musicians and even a Harvard professor. Above the phenomenon, the sweety conversation between two generations helps us understand the world in which our teenagers are growing up.
