Six Podcasts Under

It’s remarkable how the number of podcasts about dying rises every year. From euthanasia to mourning, the subject seems to fit podcasts rather well. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this is that many people usually prefer not to talk about it. Or they don’t know how to bring it up. But maybe that’s also why many of these podcasts do so well?

Sofie Verschueren talks it over at the festival with a diverse group of creators. Sofie herself started a podcast about loss and mourning in 2020: Weg. In her two-time Oorkonde nominee, she tackles a wide range of topics. But Sofie is far from the only one.

In her equally renowned podcast Kassiewijle, Dutch podcast creator Laura Stek, who prefers to ignore her own mortality, talks to Babs Bakels, an artist who constantly reflects on death and how we deal with it. And in Stoffelijk, Veerle Duflou tells the story of her deceased partner, who donated his body to science. She wonders what happens to bodies like his and asks herself when a person becomes a corpse.

And then there is Wout Demeulenaere, who co-founded the ‘podcast service’ Zeg het maar with Franki Verschueren and can attest to the comforting power of words. Zeg het maar not only makes podcasts about saying goodbye and mourning, such as Zachtmakers and Ons muzikaal hart, it also does so on behalf of those who are incurably ill or have lost someone.

This talk is in Dutch.