Director Tobias Lindner brought his fascinating documentary Orania to a packed Frontline Club on Monday 20 May.

Described as “a remote village in the barren centre of South Africa – an ‘intentional community’ where only white Afrikaans people live”, Orania is relatively unknown globally. But Lindner, a German who has spent long enough in the country to be fluent in Afrikaans, explained that “in South Africa, it is inevitable that you will hear about the place.”

Shot over a three month period in 2011, the film offers an intimate look into the lives of Afrikaners who have chosen to group together into what they call a ‘nation-state‘: a conservative, Christian farming community with the overriding aim of preserving Afrikaner culture. In Orania, self-reliance and hard work are given an almost religious importance, yet the film highlights the struggles of the community to attract –and keep – new residents. Lindner commented that it is “remarkable how many people come and then leave. [They] expect a Boer Disneyland.”

As ever, the post-screening question and answer session provided some excellent discussion. Questions focused on Orania’s ties with Eugène Terre’Blanche’s separatist AWB (“no official links”); support for apartheid (“many look back fondly”); the masculine nature of Orania (“men are in charge”); and the focus of education at the two schools (“not enough to allow the kids to interact in the world.”)

When asked if Orania will still exist in ten years, Lindner answered:

“It is hard for me to say if they will be there in the future. They have a stubbornness about them that lets me think they could be there a long time . . . which does not say they will grow.”

This lack of growth was brought home when Lindner was asked about how the protagonists are doing now, two years after the film was shot. Three have moved away and two have died, he said.  Of the leavers, the character he calls the main protagonist: a troubled, young “gangster” from Johannesburg, was kicked out during filming. Carel Boshoff, Orania’s founder and another central character in the documentary, died in March 2011.

Mention in the film of the idiom about good fences making good neighbours, prompted the question:

“With the rich Afrikaners building gated communities, is Orania for the poor ones?”

Lindner‘s reply: “It’s strange to see a community so fenced-in in their minds, but not really fenced-in in reality” was a fitting summary of Orania; an idyllic, peaceful, rural setting, inhabited by people intentionally distancing themselves from the modern South Africa, the ‘Rainbow Nation’. As Boshoff mentioned in the film:

“Give people their own territory and they live at peace with their neighbours.”

Given the record of violence against white farmers in the country, Orania has seemingly achieved this in its 22 years of existence.

Tobias Lindner: Oranians are “fenced-in in their minds, but not really fenced-in in reality”. Amazing film. #Orania #FrontlineClub

— Ratha Lehall (@RathaLehall) May 20, 2013

Orania has screened at film festivals around the world, is currently shown in independent cinema’s throughout South Africa, and will be cinematically released in Germany. There are no further screenings scheduled at the moment, but you can stay up to date through the film’s facebook page or website.

You can listen to the Q&A and watch the trailer below.

On Friday 17th May, a series of short films curated by the Frontline Club took the audience on a cinematic journey from Sarajevo to Prague, to Kabul, Aleppo and Moscow.

We started in Sarajevo with The Fuse: or How I Burned Simon Bolivar, directed by Igor Drljača.

“Dear God, I don’t know if you exist. My parents say you don’t, but Grandma says you do.”

So began a prayer by a nine year-old boy who wanted a way to avoid going to school, afraid of his mark in art class. The Bosnian War begins the very next day. School is cancelled, but the boy is left wondering if it was not his request that started the war. Drljača uses home video footage to craft a powerful, personal story of youthful innocence, fear and confusion within the cataclysmic effects of conflict.

In The Last ‘V’ of Vaclav Havel, director Jan Rendl takes us into the crowd of the state funeral of Václav Havel in Prague, on 22 December 2011. Havel was the first post-Communist president of Czechoslovakia and then served two terms as president of the Czech Republic.

The camera moves between close-ups of mourners’ faces, bowing priests and official proceedings, to figurative gestures in the mass of movement that surrounds a man who now lays still. In tribute to Havel’s social commentary as a dissident playwright, the footage is narrated by the speech of the late dissident-turned-statesman, critiquing the society he leaves behind.

Rendl also features a vocal cameo by the Dalai Lama who said of Havel:

“He was a friend to humanity.”

The next destination was to the pitch black streets of Kabul, in Dusty Roads.  Only a generator-powered kiosk and the headlights of passing vehicles illuminate the dust that fills the air. Dust is swept up by the brooms of street cleaners who toil to survive. Director Ali Hazara depicts the road sweepers and their interminable, unrewarding work as a metaphor for Afghanistan’s troubles. They curse the militants who destroyed their homes and livelihoods, as well as the corruption that is as all-pervasive as the dust:

“Corruption will never leave this country…
Our great wealth, the dust.
Dust. Dust. Dust.”

Next, Aleppo is under fire from snipers, aerial bombardment and artillery shells. The metal kills indiscriminately, and terrorises without prejudice. In Transition, directed by Marina Darmaros and Wissam Moukayed, the latter takes us on his journey from Russia to his home town of Aleppo.

The mission: to uncover the reality facing the civilian population in Syria. Moukayed is a former Syrian army officer, whose father witnessed the Al-Mashara massacre – one of several during the 1980 Siege of Aleppo. Between sniper fire and rebel checkpoints, Moukayed finds Syrian Army deserters who claim they were ordered to kill peaceful protesters, unexploded cluster munitions in residential neighbourhoods, as well as schools, homes and families torn apart by the violence. On returning to his home town, Moukayed describes an image Aleppo where:

“The smell of blood has replaced the smell of flowers.”

‘Transition’ Directed by Wissam Moukayed and Marina Darmaros @frontlineclub last night was a very good Short Docu. Thank you.

— rKive Productions (@rKiveProduction) May 18, 2013

The final leg of our tour took us to Moscow, where we were once again in the midst of a crowd. Every year 5,000 children are invited to the Kremlin’s official Christmas party. Afterwards, they must circle the square until spotted by their parents, like baggage at an airport.

Director Valeriy Shevchenko zooms in on the faces of anxious children and parents to take us Inside a Square Circle, where chaos is organisation, and the state is love. There is palpable relief when families are reunited at the end of the organised fun, which in reality seems closer to organised anguish. As one child reveller put it:

“Never again will I go to this party!”

The Christmas party may also serve as a subtle reminder that, should this child continue to voice such criticism of the Kremlin’s idea of order, anguish can very easily be organised.

Great line-up of shorts tonight @wotienke the last one left me paralysed with fear #frontlineclub

— Rajdeep Sandhu (@Rajdeep1) May 17, 2013

Bangkok-based photographer Nic Dunlop, in conversation with BBC foreign correspondent Fergal Keane, previewed his new book Brave New Burma at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 15th May. Twenty years in the making, Brave New Burma explores the country from the ongoing civil war to its deceptively tranquil cities, using both photographs and words by Dunlop.

Fergal Keane (L) and Nic Dunlop. Photo credit: Sally Ashley-Cound

Keane started off by asking Dunlop: why spend 20 years photographing Burma? Dunlop explained:

“I understood so little about Burma and I felt the only way to really get to grips with it was not only to read about it but to travel. . . . It grew out of a quest to really understand how a deeply unpopular regime could hold on to power. . . . I thought that if I was really going to get under the skin of what was going on in Burma I needed to really bide my time.”

Until recently the Burmese regime was considered to be in the same bracket as North Korea, but Dunlop said that initially he got little sense of that:

“Everything seemed normal, any sign of oppression – what I was expecting – was not there. It was a country that had been sealed off from the outside world for many years, steeped in tradition; it was almost like it was trapped in the 19th Century.”

Excellent talk about #burmaby @dunlopnic with @fergalkeane47 at #frontlineclub twitter.com/DocChrisKing/s…

— Chris King (@DocChrisKing) May 15, 2013

Dunlop said that he has a difficult time trusting photography so he felt that putting words to his images helped to contextualise his work and, in turn, the oppression of the Burmese people:

“What journalism in general has a difficulty with is trying to uncover or follow ongoing oppression. . . . When people talked about oppression I didn’t know what they meant. I didn’t know what it looked like so I resolved to take photographs and try and describe something of what was happening on a daily basis.”

Of a photograph showing the distribution of newspapers, Dunlop commented:

“Images like this are very deceptive. Without the context that I’m going to give you now, you wouldn’t know what this photograph says. Many journalists were in prison when this photograph was taken . . . they were heavily censored. Photography for me has always been a difficult and complicated medium, I’m not sure I entirely trust it. That’s why I felt that contextual information was important, hence the idea of the book.”

Adding context to a complex #Burma, @dunlopnic and his impressive pictures from over the years presented at the @frontlineclub tonight

— Charly Feldman (@charlyfeldman) May 15, 2013

Keane asked whether Dunlop is hopeful about the future of Burma:

“I think an opportunity has been missed. I think that Suu Kyi’s continued silence on the violence that has been perpetrated by many different groups, and the silence about the militaries role in all of this, has dashed any hopes of any sense of reconciliation between enemies that have been enemies for many years.”

“We have to look at Burma for the complicated place that it is and not see it as being this polarised idea. I think if we can engage in Burma in the complicated, fascinating, diverse and dynamic country that it is, then yes [I am hopeful].”

Dunlop continued:

“2007 was a landmark event, not so much for Burma, [but] in the way the West understood what was going on. The monks took to the streets and protested against the regime . . . within days the army and the police, with rifles and live ammunition, opened fire and it was quelled within a matter of days. I think it really confirmed to many people throughout the world that the regime was brutal. . . . It became a major media event and Aung San Suu Kyi became the embodiment of everything that was right about Burma, and the military was everything that was wrong.”

“It’s become almost impossible to talk about Burma without talking about Aung San Suu Kyi herself.”

Keane then added:

“She is taking the stick [for not doing anything about the oppression], when she actually has no real power to effect any change.”

Burmese civil war has been ongoing since it attained independence in 1948 and it is the longest-running civil war in the world, involving over 135 ethnic groups. These ethnic diversities are reiterated in Dunlop‘s photographs:

“The first thing you notice is the look of everyone; how rich and diverse. . . . It’s these [portrait] pictures that defy the national image that the Burmese regime has tried to impose – that there’s only one original ethnic group.”

Nic Dunlop’s new book Brave New Burma is available on Amazon now.

Sally Ashley-Cound is a freelance journalist based in London.

Watch Nic Dunlop discuss his photographs in full or listen to the podcast below:

Cold war politics have never seemed more relevant in the 21st century. Relations between the US and Russia are reaching new lows over geopolitical hot spots while the White House dodges questions about the detainment in Moscow of an alleged CIA recruiting agent.

These might seem like old stories, but a decidedly hi-tech twist is emerging as Russia’s surveillance state comes into the spotlight.  On 14 May, panelists at the Frontline Club discussed the advancement of internet censorship, monitoring technologies and potential impacts on individual freedoms in Russia.

L-R: Misha Glenny, Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan and Edward Lucas. Photo credit: Millicent Teasdale

Chair Misha Glenny, investigative journalist, author, broadcaster and leading expert on cybercrime and global mafia networks, noted the “potentially truly Orwellian” implications:

“It is unbelievable what Russian technologists are now developing . . . in terms of digital surveillance capacity. . . [And] this is not happening in isolation. It links up with what is happening in states around the world, including in the European Union and in North America, and the implications of this are truly frightening.”

Over the last few years, the Kremlin has launched several programmes – under the aegis of such agencies as the FSB (formerly KGB), interior ministry and the customs & foreign intelligence service – to monitor and control what goes on, and off, the internet.

One of the more recent programmes, said Andrei Soldatov, investigative journalist and editor and co-founder of Agentura.Ru - an information hub on intelligence agencies - includes software development to track social networks and influence public opinion on the internet. But it isn’t just about the internet, he added, as an “ambitious” RUB400 billion (£8.3bn) programme to acquire unmanned drones was announced, in addition to the state’s interest in voice and face recognition technologies.

Meanwhile, said Irina Borogan, also an investigative journalist, deputy editor and co-founder of Argenta.Ru, “intrusive and dangerous” measures are being implemented in the form of deep packet inspection, which is becoming the norm under the pretext of fighting terrorism. This technology can peer into people’s online traffic and can read, copy as well as modify emails and web pages in real time.

However, Edward Lucas, international editor of The Economist and author of Deception: Spies, Lies and how Russia Dupes the West, questioned the ability of Russia’s processing power to analyse an overwhelming flood of data:

“They have incredible power to do the surveillance, but do they have the ability, the real intelligence to make use of all the stuff that they are surveying?”

The focus of discussion turned to the role of the private sector. Privacy scandals associated with Google in China, Blackberry in the UAE and Microsoft’s Skype were discussed, as well as implications of purchases by Russian firms of companies developing surveillance technologies. Borogan said:

“We started to pay attention to surveillance programmes in 2008. As I saw it at the time, this issue would be more publicised in future, but now we see that not a lot of people . . . know a lot about Russia’s surveillance state. . . . But at the same time as surveillance technologies [are developing], now we pay more attention to the companies who are [purchasing them] and to the state programmes [that] support  them.”

Cooperation between governments globally was a cause for concern as well, with a case in point being the approaching 2014 Olympic games in Sochi, in the wake of Beijing’s crackdown in 2008. Soldatov said:

“As far as we know, the supply of telecommunications technology, including surveillance technologies, is [by a] Chinese company. . . . The problem is, how to try to control exports of surveillance technologies developed by oppressive regimes to the West, or to other countries with repressive regimes.”

The issue involves Russian influence on former Soviet Union states such as Belarus and those in Central Asia, which are importing procedures, technical expertise and legislation for surveillance interception, he added.

Although the US is currently embroiled in its own scandal involving the Justice department’s secret obtainment of AP’s phone records, Lucas did note that the while digital capacity is enormous, the administrative capacity may be much less.

Soldatov commented that for example, in the US telecommunications operators themselves monitor interception equipment, whereas in Russia the equipment is installed and monitored solely by the FSB and this technology is what is exported to other countries.

The situation throws a “suffocating digital blanket” over anyone who might be involved in conspicuous activities like organising protests, said Lucas:

“The mere fact that you are trying to do anything attracts the attention of the authorities and then you get this digital-human interface and they start looking at you. What does your wife do? Who are you talking to? Where can we apply pressure?”

He added that although individuals have access to encryption and browser technologies that offer anonymity – such as Tor - using them might result in attracting more scrutiny. Soldatov pointed out that use of Tor in Russia is quite low and the opposition government is still having discussions over Facebook.

In terms of global scope, Glenny commented:

“There is a race going on from companies in China, in Russia, in Western Europe, in the United States . . . competition for surveillance technologies, which are sold by the West, specifically with outrageously intrusive capacities to countries that they know will be used in a very unpleasant way. This is the case with Syria, this is the case with Egypt. I feel that one of the things that Russia is doing with its surveillance techniques is engaging in this competitive race.”

Anna Reitman is a freelance journalist covering financial and global news, based in London. 

You can watch the video or listen to the podcast below:

The next members’ drinks evening will take place on the 6th June from 6-8pm.

Our friends at Chivas Regal will sponsor the drinks as usual. All members are welcome, please RSVP to Silje.

Whether you’ve experience in the field, are looking to start out or simply have a critical mind, this session will give you the tools to help set up an investigation; from filing a Freedom of Information request to being aware of ethical implications.

Importantly, it will also teach you how to have one of the most interesting jobs in the world and how to survive doing it.

The workshop will be led by award-winning investigative journalist Iain Overton. Overton has conducted investigations into areas that include counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical industry, UK deaths in custody, corporate killings in Iraq, and Glasgow gang-land murders linked to security contracts. His work has been recognized with a Peabody Award, two Amnesty International Awards, a OneWorld Award, a Prix Circom, a BAFTA Scotland and 3 RTS nominations, amongst others.

Iain is currently the Director of Investigations at the international organisation Action on Armed Violence.

Here’s what participants had to say about Iain’s workshop at the club earlier this year:

“It was worth the trip from Germany!”

“A fabulous day.”

“Very good, thanks!”

“A great op, thank you.”

Schedule:
10:00 – 11:30am: The Crisis of Investigative Journalism
11:30 – 11:45am: Break
11:45 – 1:15pm: Tools of the Trade: Forensic, FOI, Data, Sources
1:15 – 2:15pm: Break
2:15 – 3:45pm: Undercover: Practicalities, Ethics & Experiences
3:45 – 4:00pm: Break
4:00 – 5:30pm: How to survive as an Investigative Journalist

Attendees will need to bring with them writing materials and/or laptop. Tea and coffee will be provided throughout the day.

Image courtesy of Iain Overton.

Join us for a day long masterclass that moves from the basic elements of television packaging through to the most sophisticated techniques, making extensive use of tape material. It is designed to work for both newcomers and experienced professionals who want to improve their storytelling.

The session will be led by Vin Ray, a former BBC Foreign Editor, Executive Editor and the founding Director of the BBC College of Journalism. During his time at the BBC, Vin was in charge of on-air talent and recruited and developed many of the corporation’s best known journalists. He was described as ‘a revered teacher’ by Andrew Marr, one of the many journalists Vin trained to broadcast. In 2004, he was awarded the Dart Centre’s ‘Distinguished Media Leadership Award’ at a ceremony in New York. He left the BBC in 2010 and now works as a writer, consultant and trainer.

Here’s what participants had to say about Vin’s recent masterclass at the club:

“Truly inspirational and motivating.”

“Just an excellent, informal course.”

“Everything and more than I expected.”

“I learnt more in one day with Vin than I have in three years at college.”

“Really enjoyed the course. The way he presented things was easy to understand.”

“So much to know, so very interesting.”

“Brilliant.”

“I can’t wait to apply what I’ve learnt!”

You will learn a range of essential craft skills and techniques: how to write sentences that work for TV; techniques the great writers use; how to use natural sound; how to script pictures; how to make stories flow; how to achieve clarity. You will learn some powerful techniques for structuring stories. We will also look at what makes a good piece to camera, and more personal issues like vocal delivery. Along the way we’ll look at issues like using humour and reporter involvement.

Image Credit: BBC College of Journalism

This screening is in partnership with Unreported World and Amnesty International.

Yemen has one of the world’s highest rates of gun ownership. In this tribal society boys are given guns and expected to become men. The prisons are full of young detainees convicted of murder. According to Yemeni law, offenders under 18 cannot be sentenced to death, but most citizens do not have documents proving their age so juveniles are often mistaken as adults.

Yemeni lawyer Hafedh Ibrahim

Reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and director Daniel Bogado travel to Yemen to reveal the stories of young men locked up in prisons and awaiting execution for crimes they are accused of committing while they were still children. The team follows lawyer Hafedh Ibrahim, as he enters Taiz prison to meet a new young client. It is the same prison where he was once held on death row at the age of 16. He is now on a mission to save others who should never have been given the death penalty.

The screening will be followed by a debate with Channel 4 Unreported World reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Sevag Kechichian from Amnesty International. Additional panelists to be confirmed.

Reporter: Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Directed by Daniel Bogado
Duration: 25′
Year: 2013

In 2010 U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning committed the largest security breach in US history, handing the classified Afghan War Diary, Iraq War Logs, and 250,000 State Department cables to Wikileaks. Imagery like that of an American helicopter team gunning down citizens and journalists on a Baghdad street in 2007 has been lodged in the global consciousness.

With Manning standing trial before a military court in June, the Frontline Club engaged an expert panel on Monday 15 May to ask what lies ahead for the whistleblower, along with what his experience might mean to governments and the media.

(L-R): Naomi Colvin, Chase Madar, Richard Gizbert and David Leigh. Photo credit: Jim Treadway

Naomi Colvin, a writer, activist and founder of UK Friends of Bradley Manning, declared him a “touchstone for people involved in social justice movements.”

“2011 is one of those years that will go down in history, like 1989, or 1968, or 1848,” she said.  “Political action was on a worldwide scale. . . . That spark of enthusiasm started in the Middle East, and the [documents that Manning released] are at least a contributing factor to that.”

Chase Madar, a New York attorney who has written a book detailing Manning’s experience, agreed:

“The State Department cables [were] just a very brutal and candid assessment of corruption in the Ben Ali government . . . Tunisian intellectuals I’ve spoken with have said you really can’t tell the story of the uprising there without at least mentioning Bradley Manning and his leaks.”

The panel rang of frustration with the American media’s failure to cover the Manning story in fairness or depth. Americans “know very little” about his case, Madar observed.

“The New York Times fails to send a journalist to cover the first public hearing with Manning,” lamented Richard Gizbert, Presenter for al Jazeera’s Listening Post, “which even the Times’ own ombudsman said was ridiculous.”

“I got adopted by the staff of a fish restaurant in Glasgow [recently],” Madar recounted. “The bartender and the waiter knew all about [Manning’s case], and it’s because The Guardian’s coverage [has been] much better than anything in the United States.”

David Leigh, the Guardian‘s investigations editor until 2013 and co-author of a book on Julian Assange and Wikileaks, reduced Manning’s trial to “a piece of theatre by the American military to expose, dramatise, penalise and terrorise whistleblowers.”

Even still, Madar harbored optimism for what Manning will ultimately represent:

“He delivered a 35-page statement of intent in court a couple of months ago…  it was very impressive… poised, very self-possessed, very thoughtful and reflective, as opposed to the way he’d been demonised as some naricissistic little punk… The more people hear from Bradley Manning in his own words and in his own voice – because someone smuggled a recorder into the courtroom, you can hear him with his own voice - the more they’re going to realise that Bradley Manning is the responsible, ethical citizen; that it’s his detractors in government and the media who are the narcissistic, little, punks.”

You can watch a recording of the event or listen to the audio podcast below:

As Barack Obama enters the second year of his second and final term in office, he faces considerable foreign policy challenges. The US position on Syria and the controversy over the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya are weighing on the president. There is a notable attempt by the Obama administration to make a strategic pivot towards Asia and away from the Middle East.

Join us as we dissect Obama’s foreign policy ambitions, exploring the shifts in focus and how they are playing out. Will he achieve his second term goals? Can he successfully pull focus to Asia or will the conflict in Syria direct attention back to the Middle East?

The Obama administration is making considerable efforts to redefine American power, through domestic reforms that the president calls “nation-building at home” and substantial shifts in foreign policy. We will be looking more widely at the attempts to rebuild America’s global strength.

The panel:

Kim Ghattas has been the BBC’s State Department correspondent since 2008, and travels regularly with the Secretary of State. She is author of the recently published The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power. She was previously a Middle East correspondent for the BBC and the Financial Times, based in Beirut. Her work has also appeared in TIME magazine, the Boston Globe, NPR, and the Washington Post.

Additional speakers to be confirmed.