Earshot

The Australian outback is home to many mysteries, but the Marree Man has to be one of the biggest. In every sense of the word.

The All Blacks have taunted their opponents with haka for more than a century. But the world saw haka in a new light after the Christchurch terror attacks in 2019 triggered spontaneous haka performances in streets, parks and outside the Al Noor mosque.

Tales of following your fantasy to find your true self. Performing as a drag king on-stage has helped Rae be her authentic non-binary self off-stage and by night Kusaki becomes something else…something animal, when he slips into a fur suit.

When her Parkinson's Disease medication stopped working musician and writer Linda Neil was in a very dark place. But a treatment called Deep Brain Stimulation has allowed her to return to playing the violin, singing, songwriting, living an independent life and riding her pink bicycle.

Earshot presents documentaries about people, places and ideas, in all their diversity.

Martin lives out of a shopping trolley and sleeps rough on the cold streets of Canberra. But his passion for running, gift for words and an unlikely friend help him to get by.

Andrew was building a life and career in Singapore when his world was turned upside down by a routine visit to the doctor.

Come on a wild ride through the compelling life of Taku Mbudzi, who defied the constraints of a strict Zimbabwean church, embarked on a solo journey to Australia at 19, and held onto a life-altering secret that shattered her father's heart. Discover how she harnessed the healing power of comedy, to develop resilience, understanding and forgiveness.

It used to be said that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus but Max has been to both planets. As a trans-man he has some fascinating observations about the world of men, having stood on the other side of the gender divide.

Jim Everett is a man of many selves  – philosopher, fisherman, scholar, activist, poet, soldier, filmmaker, sauce maker. And at sixteen he discovered a hidden part of himself.

Paulina always knew she had half- siblings around the world. They all shared the same Tongan father. Finding them was the best thing she ever did.

Indigenous and African migrant communities collide in the Northern Territory, as Sydney-born Brian Obiri-Asare explores what it means to be black in Australia

Bev Francis found out by accident she was the strongest woman in the world. It was the late 1970s, and the sport of women’s weightlifting was still new. When international records were compared, no one was as strong as Bev: she could defy gravity, lifting more than three times her bodyweight. Meet this forgotten champion of women’s muscle sports, who’s a firm believer that rules are meant to be broken.

Erin follows her partner and Deathmatch wrestler Callen Butcher to ringside. While he battles his opponents in choreographed displays of gory competition, she is fighting to feel alive, as a disabled person living with chronic illness. Can they find harmony in their minds and bodies, together?

The only thing that would quell Clare’s anxiety about her disintegrating marriage was a drink. It started with just one or two a night, it took the edge off. And so she kept following that feeling, the numbness, until she was drinking herself into oblivion.

Sarah and Miles took a strict approach to internet use with their 13 year old daughter Ruby. And when Miles suspected she was being groomed on Pinterest, they cracked down harder. But Ruby pushed back – she hacked the controls, secretly spent nights and class time on socials. Their relationship with Ruby took a hit and she shut down.When Sarah realised she was losing her daughter she decided to find a new way to keep Ruby safe, sane and connected.

It was supposed to be a hiking adventure, but it ended in an unforeseeable accident that would change Warren and Geert's futures forever.  When he was sitting around a campfire on a remote island in Far North Queensland, Warren Macdonald made a life-changing decision.He’d sparked up a conversation with a Dutch hiker named Geert van Keulen, and he decided to follow Geert up a mountain the following morning.It was supposed to be a hiking adventure, but it ended in an unforeseeable accident that would change both their futures forever.  

If a friend sent you a farewell text, saying she was planning to end her life, what would you do? Jennie’s response was to go and sing with Nia and promise to tell her story.Nia has scleroderma, her skin and lungs have hardened over the last 20 years, the pain and discomfort has now become unbearable. But thanks to the Voluntary Assisted Dying laws that Nia helped establish she will have the death she hopes for.  

Charlotte was a deeply religious teenager -  she prayed, served, and saved herself for marriage. Marriage, she was promised, would bring fireworks, fulfilment. After 5 years of dating, Charlotte married Casey. But as she got older, Charlotte began to question those promises made to her about marriage and happy-ever-after.

Full of hope, botox and impossible dreams, beauty queens are judged on their beauty, sincerity and smarts. They promise world peace in exchange for fame, fortune and adoration. That’s the pact contestants make with the faceless owners of glittering pageants.

Oscar Berry is 24 and has a rare genetic disorder, speech disability, epilepsy and cerebral palsy. He might have a “dodgy chromosome” as his mum Kim says, but he’s gregarious, lives for the gym and his weekend activities, and is dying to move in with his mates. But when Oscar got his new NDIS plan in April, those dreams blew apart. 

Imagine facing death with no next of kin and no funds to pay for your funeral.  In Victoria you’ll end up in the care of Alan Barr at the Old Ballan Cemetery. He’s made a promise to people like this, who often become State Trustees, to provide a dignified end to their lives.When Miyuki Jokiranta finally finds her friend, Monika, a State Trustee who died during the pandemic, she meets Alan, the keeper of the forgotten souls

Promise me you won’t walk out of our restaurant, quit on our kids, run from our poverty, ignore our autism, ADHD or alopecia, or be defeated by our pandemic-induced loss of home and income.If author Naomi Hart had known the marriage vows that had tripped off her tongue so easily 14 years ago would come to mean all this, would she ever have said them in the first place?You will laugh, cringe and cry as Naomi and her husband Gregory share the story of their marriage. 

Susan Lester inadvertently entered a world of political and corporate corruption when she was made the promise of a lifetime by one of Tasmania’s most powerful businessmen. When she signed a contract with Edmund Rouse to paint 200 watercolours of birds she had no idea it would be a decision that would overwhelm her and her artistic career.

Jess made a promise to a woman she would never meet, the mother of her daughter Noelle.Baby Noelle was found in the arms of her dead birth mother on the streets of Kinshasa in The Congo, she lived in an orphanage until she was four. Now, she’s 16 and living in Melbourne with Jess and her sisters, but she’s never known another Congolese person.Will a trip to Shepparton to meet the Congolese community take away that emptiness that she feels inside? Will it fulfil the promise that Jess made all those years ago? 

Every family has its secrets, but for people from the LGBTQIA+ community the 'secret' can be their true selves. We meet three young queer Australians at different stages of coming out.

Locals were devastated when their newspaper was axed, so they set up their own. Dynamo editor cum journalist Susanna Freymark tells the stories that really matter to The Richmond River community.

Indigenous and African migrant communities collide in the Northern Territory, as Sydney-born Brian Obiri-Asare explores what it means to be black in Australia

When the Black Summer firestorm hits her street, Cath runs for her life—leaving her partner Jack, who’s hellbent on staying to defend their home. Later, among the shock and the chaos, it hits her: Oh my god, where is Jack?

Landays is a powerful and subversive form of poetry in Afghanistan, performed by women. Part of traditional folk culture, the poems are oral and improvised. And for the women who give voice to them, there's a price to pay.

Chinese-Australia singer, Rainbow Chan, returns to her mother’s village in Hong Kong. She meets some charismatic grannies who sing surprisingly subversive and feminist protest songs, known as bridal laments.

What does your voice say about you? Not your choice of words, but all the extra information the voice carries, like our emotions, accents, even apparently our identity. Details that big tech and governments are more and more interested in each day.

The town of Nederland in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains has an unusual mascot: an old, dead Norwegian man, whose body is preserved in a backyard cryogenics chamber. Behind it all - his grandson keeps the dream of his return alive.

Noelle Martin was an 18-year-old law student when she found hundreds of explicit images online with her face photoshopped onto the naked bodies of porn actresses.

Come inside a neo-natal intensive care unit, where the lives of premature babies hang in the balance. Four mothers remember the excitement and the agony of their babies' first few months of life.

30 years ago Bill was a Policeman and Brett was a teenager heading towards a life of crime. But then Bill said something to Brett that turned his life around. This is a rare encounter between two men whose lives have been scarred by violence and anger, who want to reach out and help each other to heal.

An obscure Japanese musician has found millions of fans thanks to YouTube.  Hiroshi Yoshimura's ambient synth music is perfect for long background listening and keeps you on the YouTube platform for hours, caught in the attention economy.

100 years ago the Banaban people had no idea they were living on the richest natural resource in the Pacific- one the world was desperate to get its hands on. The first they heard of it was when a mysterious visitor arrived, wanting signatures. That was the beginning of the end of their time on their island home, and the start of a superbly rich period in Australia’s history.

After fifty years of industrial development that’s destroyed thousands of sacred petroglyphs, the West Australian government is finally backing a push for World Heritage Listing. But it’s also considering two major new chemical plants.

Two blokes buy the radio rights to an international test cricket series on a credit card.

How does a community learn to live together after years of fighting each other in the most violent way possible? The remote Indonesian province of Poso is recovering from a decade-long religious conflict and in the face of hatred a brave group of women are leading the charge for peace and sovereignty.