Balloon Warriors
San Francisco, California | Radio & Podcasts
Documentary, Mystery
Mateo and Elize were selected as finalists for a pitch competition at the Sheffield DocFest this June where they'll compete for a £5,000 production award. It’s an amazing opportunity! The festival covers £400 of travel, but they still need $2,500 to cover flights and accommodations.
Balloon Warriors
San Francisco, California | Radio & Podcasts
Documentary, Mystery
1 Campaigns | California, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $3,445 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
30 supporters | followers
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Mateo and Elize were selected as finalists for a pitch competition at the Sheffield DocFest this June where they'll compete for a £5,000 production award. It’s an amazing opportunity! The festival covers £400 of travel, but they still need $2,500 to cover flights and accommodations.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Balloon Warriors is an eight-part, investigative podcast series that challenges everything you thought you knew about North Korea.
This project began in March 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine. Mateo read that journalists covering the war were reviving old technologies to get around Russia’s information blackout. It made him wonder: how do people communicate in places cut off from the outside world?
That’s how he and his reporting partner, Elize, stumbled on the balloons. A strange, unwieldy, and outdated Cold War technology that North Korean defectors were using to solve this problem. The launchers deliver propaganda leaflets, Bibles, and cash to information-starved North Koreans using giant balloons.
What ensues is a wild journey into the seedy underbelly of balloon propaganda, complete with assassination attempts, Interpol investigations, CIA operatives, and a Christian rock concert in the Texas desert.
Elize and Mateo are radio reporters based in San Francisco.
The two met in 2021 while producing a weekly radio program about international news and politics on KQED. But after realizing their favorite part of the job was finding the individual stories at the heart of geopolitical issues, they decided to dig deeper.
Fascinated by the balloons and a story about a mysterious, bitter feud between the most prominent launchers, Mateo dove in, bringing his sound engineering skills cultivated through years of obsession with podcasts and a penchant for gut wrenching, personal storytelling to the project. But he couldn’t do it alone. That’s why he needed Elize, a journalist and political science nerd with a deep love for Cold War mysteries–because in some ways, she feels like her own life is a Cold War mystery.
Together, they embark on an audio adventure to find out the truth about balloons.
Mateo and Elize were selected as finalists for a podcast pitch competition at the Sheffield DocFest in June 2024!
They'll compete with six other producers for a £5,000 award and have an opportunity to network with distributors and commissioners in the audio world.
But they have a problem: The Whickers (awarding organization) generously covers £400 worth of travel to the UK, but that’s well short of what it will take to get them there. They are asking for your help to raise an additional $2,500 USD that will cover the full costs of helping Mateo and Elize compete in the competition.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Flights to London
Costs $1,800
They aren't going to swim there!
Two Hotel Nights in Sheffield
Costs $500
To take in the culture.
Train Tickets from London to Sheffield
Costs $200
Choo Choo!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Share this update!
About This Team
Elize and Mateo are joined by an amazing team of editors and producers including Jarrod Sport, Kathryn Isaac, and Samantha Schulte.
Jarrod brings more than a decade of editorial experience to the project. As a mentor and editor, Jarrod has pushed Elize and Mateo to be more ambitious in their reporting since day one.
Kathryn is the Head of Development at The Documentary Group, an award-winning film and audio production company. Kathryn was most recently the Executive Producer of iHeart Media's hit podcast, Svetlana! Svetlana!
Samantha is a producer and consultant in nonfiction storytelling, and has helped the team navigate the wild world of balloons.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Balloon Warriors is an eight-part, investigative podcast series that challenges everything you thought you knew about North Korea.
This project began in March 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine. Mateo read that journalists covering the war were reviving old technologies to get around Russia’s information blackout. It made him wonder: how do people communicate in places cut off from the outside world?
That’s how he and his reporting partner, Elize, stumbled on the balloons. A strange, unwieldy, and outdated Cold War technology that North Korean defectors were using to solve this problem. The launchers deliver propaganda leaflets, Bibles, and cash to information-starved North Koreans using giant balloons.
What ensues is a wild journey into the seedy underbelly of balloon propaganda, complete with assassination attempts, Interpol investigations, CIA operatives, and a Christian rock concert in the Texas desert.
Elize and Mateo are radio reporters based in San Francisco.
The two met in 2021 while producing a weekly radio program about international news and politics on KQED. But after realizing their favorite part of the job was finding the individual stories at the heart of geopolitical issues, they decided to dig deeper.
Fascinated by the balloons and a story about a mysterious, bitter feud between the most prominent launchers, Mateo dove in, bringing his sound engineering skills cultivated through years of obsession with podcasts and a penchant for gut wrenching, personal storytelling to the project. But he couldn’t do it alone. That’s why he needed Elize, a journalist and political science nerd with a deep love for Cold War mysteries–because in some ways, she feels like her own life is a Cold War mystery.
Together, they embark on an audio adventure to find out the truth about balloons.
Mateo and Elize were selected as finalists for a podcast pitch competition at the Sheffield DocFest in June 2024!
They'll compete with six other producers for a £5,000 award and have an opportunity to network with distributors and commissioners in the audio world.
But they have a problem: The Whickers (awarding organization) generously covers £400 worth of travel to the UK, but that’s well short of what it will take to get them there. They are asking for your help to raise an additional $2,500 USD that will cover the full costs of helping Mateo and Elize compete in the competition.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Flights to London
Costs $1,800
They aren't going to swim there!
Two Hotel Nights in Sheffield
Costs $500
To take in the culture.
Train Tickets from London to Sheffield
Costs $200
Choo Choo!
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Share this update!
About This Team
Elize and Mateo are joined by an amazing team of editors and producers including Jarrod Sport, Kathryn Isaac, and Samantha Schulte.
Jarrod brings more than a decade of editorial experience to the project. As a mentor and editor, Jarrod has pushed Elize and Mateo to be more ambitious in their reporting since day one.
Kathryn is the Head of Development at The Documentary Group, an award-winning film and audio production company. Kathryn was most recently the Executive Producer of iHeart Media's hit podcast, Svetlana! Svetlana!
Samantha is a producer and consultant in nonfiction storytelling, and has helped the team navigate the wild world of balloons.