DIG Festival 2025: «Targets».» will host the best investigative podcasts of the last year, selected as finalists at the DIG Awards 2025, our prestigious awards celebrating since 2020 the best of audio journalism, assigned by our international Jury.
In this page you will find the links to listen to the 5 finalists of this year, selected among hundreds of submissions coming from all over the planet.
Buried: The Last Witness
PRODUCTION: Smoke Trail production
DISTRIBUTION: BBC Radio 4
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: United Kingdom
DATE: June 2024
LENGTH: 150′
MADE BY: Dan Ashby, Lucy Taylor
For decades, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were used in industry without restraint. Only later did their true nature emerge: toxic, carcinogenic chemicals that are nearly impossible to eradicate once released into the environment. Buried: The Last Witness investigates the impact of PCBs on the United Kingdom and its ecosystems, drawing on newly uncovered evidence from a now-deceased firsthand witness. The filmmakers extend their inquiry to the present, revealing how, even decades later, these chemicals continue to contaminate food, soil, and people, largely without the public’s knowledge.
Lost Cells
PRODUCTION: Swissinfo.ch, Piz Gloria Productions, Ochenta, Futur Proche
DISTRIBUTION: Swissinfo.ch
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Switzerland
DATE: February 2025
LENGTH: 175′
MADE BY: Antoine Harari, Valeria Mazzucchi, Susanne Reber, Grant Hill
Across Europe, the stem cell business is booming. Between broken promises and little concern for patients, an increasing number of private “banks” are cashing in by commercializing cord blood. Lost Cells follows the stories of people in Switzerland, Spain, Serbia, and the United States in their desperate search for a cure to terminal illnesses, uncovering the distortions of an opaque system that feeds on our deepest anxieties about health, technology, and the future.
Re:tour. A Step Away from Gaza
PRODUCTION: Lifegate Radio
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Italy
DATE: November 2024
LENGTH: 103′
MADE BY: Michela Chimenti
A travel agency offers tours through Israeli territory along the so-called Gaza Envelope and other sites struck by Hamas on October 7, 2023. As the sound of bombs echoes over Gaza, a tourist dons a cap reading “we will dance again.” The podcast Re:Tour takes listeners inside an ideological bubble fueled by political and commercial interests, all while, just a few hundred meters away, the genocide of the Palestinian people unfolds in plain sight of the international community.
The Minister's Millions
PRODUCTION: Al Jazeera
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: United Kingdom
DATE: September 2024
LENGTH: 118′
MADE BY: AJ I-Unit
A Bangladeshi minister built a half-billion-dollar empire, amassing hundreds of luxury properties in London, Dubai, and New York. But how did Saifuzzaman Chowdhury manage all this on a parliamentary salary of just $13,000? The Minister's Millions is a story of money laundering and illicit funds, revealed by an undercover investigation that has triggered a strong response from Bangladeshi authorities. Chowdhury’s bank accounts have been frozen, and police are probing the activities of the former minister and his associates. Meanwhile, the governor proclaims his innocence, claiming he is the target of a politically motivated witch hunt.
The Shadow of El Dorado: Unearthing Colombia's Blood Gold
PRODUCTION: InSight Crime
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Colombia
DATE: April 2025
LENGTH: 229′
MADE BY: James Bargent
It is often in the planet’s most remote and isolated corners that the grip of capitalism proves most devastating. Such is the case in Segovia, Colombia, where gold mining is steeped in violence and illegality. The Shadow of El Dorado reveals how the pursuit of this “bloodstained” metal enriches not only warlords and gangsters but also figures within the global political and business elite.
