Fran is a 70-year-old woman living in Bristol, you wouldn't guess that spent years running elections for the UN in dangerous locations around the world, at one point reporting weekly to the President of Afghanistan. But for her, the most important work she did was with the East Timor independence referendum. We go on a journey with her through the single track pathways in the mountains, into a besieged UN Compound and beyond. How she has used her UN status and put her body between people under threat and the forces that seek to harm them. “I thought it would be an international incident if I was shot.”

Charles Parker Award Winner - Beyond The Ballot

Lara describes her encounters with her father's body after his death last year. The very different experiences in the hospital and in the chapel of rest. And how moving it was washing his body.

An Act of Love

Teaser - The Stone Tapes project is an analog audio installation at The Cube Microplex, Bristol. The stone tape is the theory that strong emotional moments are stored in the walls of a building and can be replayed in the right circumstances. We recorded people with strong memories in the place the event happened. We will install micro-FM transmitters on that spot and the audience will have radio walkmans tuned to the right frequency playing on a treasure hunt for these echos.

Stone Tapes Teaser

Fran is retired UN Election Organiser who now lives on a houseboat in Bristol - but the voyage of her life is extraordinary - a true story of an ordinary person rising to meet extraordinary circumstances.  Fran was a peacekeeper in 1990s South Africa and in the 2000s she de facto wrote the election law in Afghanistan, despite a suicide bomber in her office. But the work she is most proud of is what she did in East Timor’s independence referendum. Along mountain passes and into a besieged UN-Compound, she tells the story of how she put herself in harm's way to help bring freedom to the region. The toll it took on her mental health and road she walked back to wellness. 

The judges thought this prize-winner feature, produced by Rosa Eaton a student at the University of the West of England, was 

Beyond the Ballot is one of the five winners of the Charles Parker Prize 2019 for the Best Student Radio Feature.  The award is presented every year in memory of pioneering radio producer Charles Parker who produced the famous series of Radio Ballads with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.
 
Producer, Rosa Eaton is studying for a Master in radio documentary production at the University of West of England, and her feature was praised by the Charles Parker Award judges as a “beautifully layered, well told and edited story, with a great talker at its heart.”

Beyond The Ballot - Radio 4 New Storytellers Extended Edit

Grove Wood is small in stature but beloved by locals. They had to fight when a notorious local developer bought it. 

Made with BCFM and M Shed Museum as part of my Radio Docs MA. We were given a postcode to find a story in.  This peaceful woodland has a past that is anything but. I learnt a lot about libel law working on this project so do please ask me more if you see me in the pub!

Battle Ground

The trailer for my first full-length documentary, The Final Touch.

The Final Touch Trailer

In The Final Touch, I tackle my childhood phobia of cadavers through a series of love stories. From cremated remains mixed with tattoo ink to the rose water used to anoint bodies in a mosque washing room; we meet the people who get up close and personal with their dead. A tender and uplifting exploration of mortality.

Made as the dissertation piece for my Radio Documentary Masters at the University of the West of England.

The Final Touch - Rosa Eaton

Independent radio producer, theatre maker and artist. 

Www.rosaeaton.com