Mortada Gzar experienced violence and persecution as a gay teenager under Saddam Hussein's regime. He tells Jo Fidgen how he tried to immerse himself in religion to overcome his feelings, later serving as an imam while studying at university in Baghdad. But during the US-led occupation of Iraq in 2003, he fell deeply in love with an American soldier who was stationed at a checkpoint outside his university. The two men spent years hiding their relationship, and dreamed of one day living openly together in the US. But things didn't go according to plan...

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Presenter: Jo Fidgen

Producer: Rebecca Vincent

Picture: Mortada Gzar

Credit: Jonathan Reibsome

After striking doctors refused to treat his dying son, Agibou Bougobali Sanou was so angry that he was tempted to kill in revenge. Dancing helped to relieve this urge, so he decided to go into a dangerous prison to bring its healing power to criminals, whose lives he also changed. The world renowned dancer and choreographer tells Jo Fidgen his moving story.

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Producers: Saskia Edwards and Edgar Maddicot.

Picture: Aguibou Bougobali Sanou with prisoners in Burkina Faso

Credit: Jacob Yisra'el / supplied by Aguibou Bougobali Sanou

Carol Benjamin's family was perfectly ordinary - until the military took over in Brazil in the 1960s. Her father Cesar, who was just a schoolboy at the time, became an underground revolutionary in the armed uprising against the dictatorship. And when he was captured, Carol’s quiet law-abiding grandmother joined the resistance movement to free him. Years later, Cesar refused to speak about his experiences and Carol grew up trying to fill in the gaps in her family's history, and attempting to understand her father and his silences.

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Presenter: Jo Fidgen

Producer: Maryam Maruf

Picture: Carol and Cesar Benjamin

Credit: Courtesy of Carol Benjamin and Daza Films

Growing up in London, Julie Felix always dreamed of dancing on the city's most famous stages, but she says she ended up leaving the UK in the 1970s after a ballet company excluded her because of the colour of her skin. Instead, she became a star in the United States with the prestigious Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first classical ballet company to focus on black dancers. Under the tutelage of the great African-American dancer Arthur Mitchell, Julie travelled the world performing for the likes of the singer Prince, Pavarotti and President Ronald Reagan. A book has been written about Julie's life called Brickbats and Tutus. A shorter version of this story was first broadcast on 15th April 2021.

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Presenter & producer: Mariana Des Forges

Picture: A montage of photographs from Julie Felix's life

Credit: All photos courtesy of Julie Felix

In 1973 Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés decided to create an experiment to find out what drives people to commit acts of violence. He put a group of men and women from different parts of the world on a raft and cast them out to sea. But what happened was not what he expected. Emily Webb hears from three of the women who took part - Fé Seymour, Edna Reves and Maria Bjornstam. This story was originally broadcast in May 2019.

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Picture: The raft cast out to sea by Santiago Genovés

Credit: Modern Films

Jan Six is a Dutch art dealer whose ancestor, also called Jan Six, was painted by the Dutch Master Rembrandt in the 17th century. So when, in 2016, Jan uncovered a lost painting by Rembrandt, the news shook the art world. But, at the time, Jan was hiding another astonishing find… he told Outlook’s Emily Webb his story.

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Presenter: Emily Webb

Producer: Emily Webb

Picture: Jan Six takes a selfie with Portrait of a Young Gentleman by Rembrandt van Rijn in The Hermitage Museum, Amsterdam, which Jan bought at a London auction in 2016

Credit: KOEN VAN WEEL/AFP via Getty Images

Meriel Schindler grew up in London in a family of émigrés. They were Jewish and had fled Austria in the late 1930s as Hitler's Nazi Party took over and the violent persecution of Jews turned into the Holocaust. When her father died in 2017, Meriel inherited 13 photo albums. One was dedicated to the Café Schindler in Innsbruck, Austria, a venue set up by her Jewish grandfather in the 1920s. As Meriel started to research the café, she discovered it had gone from being a hub of jazz music and delicious pastries, to a Nazi watering hole. But the research would also uncover some uncomfortable truths about her father that she struggled to make sense of.

Meriel has written a book called The Lost Café Schindler.

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Presenter: Emily Webb

Producer: Katy Takatsuki

Picture: Meriel Schindler and a photo of the Café Schindler in the 1930s

Credit: Holly Falconer / courtesy of Meriel Schindler

Mikel Jollett started life in a California-based cult called Synanon. What began as a drug rehabilitation programme that helped his father kick a heroin addiction later turned into a cult where children were taken away from their parents at just six months old and married couples were forced to split up and take new partners. As the cult turned increasingly violent, Mikel’s mother managed to escape with him and his brother, but Mikel’s hardships didn’t end there. For years he never spoke about his childhood. It was only later - when he discovered a love for music and formed a successful band, The Airborne Toxic Event - that he began to open up and write about those early years. Mikel’s book is called Hollywood Park.

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Presented by: Emily Webb

Produced by: Patrick Kiteley and Andrea Rangecroft

Picture: Mikel Jollett performs with The Airborne Toxic Event in 2015

Credit: Andrew Benge/Redferns via Getty Images

When a plane carrying 11-year-old Norman Ollestad, his father and his father’s girlfriend got caught in a snowstorm and crashed into the remote California mountains in 1979, Norman was the only survivor. In a harrowing tale of survival, Norman describes how, stranded on the edge of a cliff, he relied on the skills his father had taught him throughout his childhood to make it down the treacherous mountain to safety. 27 years later Norman decided to return to the crash site and while there, made an extraordinary discovery.

Norman Ollestad’s memoir is called Crazy For the Storm. His latest work is a short story called Formentera about the fraying relationship of a married couple.

The archive you heard comes courtesy of CBS.

Presenter and producer: Mariana Des Forges

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When Kurdish folk singer Nawroz Oramari was a teenager growing up in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, he was told he'd be executed if he was caught singing - he and his father even had to sign a pledge saying that they accepted the death penalty if they did so. Nawroz tells Anu Anand about his remarkable life - joining the Kurdish resistance, ending up in prison and even taking on multiple identities - including that of an Emirati Oil Tycoon - in his quest to be able to sing freely in his native language.

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Presenter: Anu Anand

Producer: Mariana Des Forges

Picture: Nawroz Oramari in London

Credit: Courtesy of Nawroz Oramari