Winners
Immerse your ears in the best audio documentaries and storytelling since 2001, the winners of the Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition.
Britney
Andrea is a writer who no one reads. Her second novel bombed. She never saw anyone reading it. That is until 2008.
- 2015
- 44:30
- Starlee Kine
695BGK
Police officer John Edwards was patrolling a quiet neighborhood in Bellaire, Texas, when he saw an SUV driven by two young African-American men.
- 2015
- 19:14
- Lauren Spohrer
- Phoebe Judge
Structural Integrity
When it was built in 1977, the 59-story CitiCorp Center had a fatal flaw that could have caused the building to collapse, and take out the entire mid-town Manhattan skyline with it.
- 2015
- 21:54
- Joel Werner
- Sam Greenspan
'Til Death Do Us Part
2006 ShortDocs Winner! Producer Sasha Aslanian's divorced parents listen to audio of their 1963 wedding vows, remember what went wrong, but still can't get over each other.
- 2006
- 02:30
- Sasha Aslanian
X-Town
In the late 1930s, Massachusetts flooded four towns in the central part of the state to create a reservoir for the city of Boston. More than 2,000 people lived in those towns.
- 2003
- 07:29
- Sean Cole
The Giant Pool of Money (INC)
This documentary, a special collaboration between This American Life and NPR News, deconstructs the current housing crisis.
- 2008
- 59:02
- Adam Davidson
- Alex Blumberg
Talk to Me About Love
2006 ShortDocs Winner! Two curious siblings finally get what they think they've always wanted.
- 2006
- 02:30
- David Whitcomb
- Jill Dorothy Summers
Sel: Trois Façons (Salt: Three Ways)
2013 ShortDocs Winner! No one has an appetite for perfection and swearing like a Québécois in search of poutine.
- 2013
- 02:59
- Kelly Jones
Betrayed by Silence
Betrayed by Silence takes listeners inside the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to find out how and why three archbishops protected priests who sexually abused children.
- 2015
- 57:05
- Madeleine Baran
- Sasha Aslanian
A Lucky Wind
Do we live in a world where there is magic and meaning, or is it all just chance?
- 2009
- 19:28
- Jad Abumrad
- Soren Wheeler
Yes, There Is a Baby
In the 1940s, when he was 16 years old, Myron Jones was allowed to stay up late any night of the week and hang out at bars or wherever he pleased, but his mother barely let his older sister Carol out of the house at all. So the siblings devised a plan.
- 2002
- 24:47
- Alex Blumberg
- Ira Glass
- Jonathan Goldstein
Tracking
Jaimita Haskell was given the opportunity to take advanced classes at her high school, an experience she found stimulating and rewarding.
- 2003
- 08:47
- Czerina Patel
- Jaimita Haskell
- Marianne McCune
My Umami Gas Mask
2013 ShortDocs Winner! A bleak future with nothing good to eat... except your gas mask.
- 2013
- 02:58
- Sam Agee
This Can Go On Forever
Eighteen years after Carol gave up her son for adoption, she still believed they would meet again.
- 2010
- 10:25
- Shea Shackelford
- Virginia Millington
Perfect Hearing
Nubar Alexanian and his 14-year-old daughter Abby examine how his tinnitus and her hearing loss have affected their lives and shaped their relationship.
- 2004
- 13:20
- Abby Alexanian
- Jay Allison
- Nubar Alexanian
Who Took Mom to the Prom?
2015 ShortDocs Winner! A story of girls who say 'yes' that is 100% true.
- 2015
- 02:30
- Emer Horgan
American Dreamer: Sam's Story
American schools teach students that with hard work, they can realize their dreams. But this isn't the case for everyone.
- 2010
- 44:04
- Dan Collison
- Elizabeth Meister
My Parents' Extreme Tango Makeover
When Yowei Shaw was in college, her parents' relationship began to change.
- 2012
- 09:17
- Yowei Shaw
My So-Called Lungs
Laura Rothenberg is 21 years old, but likes to say that she's already had her mid-life crisis. Laura has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that affects the lungs and other organs.
- 2002
- 34:31
- Joe Richman
- Laura Rothenberg
Heroin
In Heroin, teenager Janesse Nieves confronts her father about his heroin addiction, and eloquently shares her own feelings of confusion, anger, embarrassment and disgust.
- 2001
- 08:27
- Czerina Patel
- Janesse Nieves
- Marianne McCune
The Ambassador of Go
Most Americans have never heard of Go, an ancient board game that has simpler rules than chess but such complex strategy that computers can't even beat a talented amateur.
- 2005
- 05:46
- Blake Eskin
Memento Mori
Some members of Jude Fletcher's family have a fondness for taking pictures of the dead. Their photo albums boast the typical shots of joyous celebrations and family gatherings, side by side with shots of loved ones in their caskets.
- 2004
- 08:20
- Jude Fletcher
Listening to Jamie
Imagine a cold London winter, where the bizarre and unpredictable sounds made by producer Hugh Levinson's sleeping newborn punctuate the dark nights in the most unimaginable ways.
- 2004
- 07:23
- Hugh Levinson
Dinner at the Blind Cow
From the moment you enter the restaurant's dining room, you're in complete darkness. Blind waiters take your order, help you find your water glass, and lead you to the bathroom as needed.
- 2004
- 07:47
- Adam Burke
Vagy/Szomjusag/Thirst
As a boy, George Bien was sent thousands of miles away from Hungary to Siberia, to the notorious Gulag - the prison camp system in the Soviet Union, where millions of people perished.
- 2003
- 06:45
- Alex van Oss