Syria
World Briefing 2021 – Foreign Correspondents & Experts Discuss World News
Panel Discussion Moderated by Michael Bociurkiw. Joined By: Janine di Giovanni a multi-award winning journalist and author, a Senior Fellow and Professor at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs Andrei Soldatov, Russian investigative journalist and Russian security services expert, co-founder and editor of the Agentura.Ru and author of the recent book […]
Black Wave
For decades, the question has haunted the Arab and Muslim world, heard across Iran and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and in the author’s home country of Lebanon. Was it always so? When did the extremism, intolerance and bloodletting of today displace the region’s cultural promise and diversity?
The Cave + Q&A @ Picturehouse Central or Curzon Soho
Ahead of its UK release, Frontline Club members and supporters are invited to a special preview screening + Q&A of Feras Fayyad’s powerful new documentary, The Cave, which tells the harrowing true story of an underground Syrian hospital and its extraordinary staff.
FOR SAMA + Q&A
Join us for a special screening of acclaimed feature documentary FOR SAMA with filmmakers Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts. An intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war, FOR SAMA is told as a love letter from a young Syrian mother to her daughter. It tells the story of filmmaker Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to her daughter Sama while cataclysmic conflict rises around her.
End of the Caliphate
Ivor Prickett’s book End of the Caliphate is the result of months spent on the ground in Iraq and Syria between 2016 and 2018 photographing the battle to defeat ISIS. Working exclusively for the New York Times, Ivor was often embedded with Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces as he documented both the fighting and its toll on the civilian population and urban landscape.
The Meaning of Jihad: An Evening with Abdullah Anas
Join Abdullah Anas, Jonathan Powell and Tam Hussein to rethink what it means to be a jihadist in the modern world.
Watch the video stream of The Meaning of Jihad
‘A Private War’ Exclusive Pre-screening + Q&A
Join us for an exclusive pre-screening of ‘A Private War’. We’re partnering with Women in Journalism for a Q&A afterwards with Matthew Heinemann and Paul Conroy, chaired by Eleanor Mills.
Watch the video stream of ‘A Private War’ Exclusive Q&A
Under The Wire + Q&A
On 13 February 2012, war-correspondent Marie Colvin and photographer Paul Conroy entered war-ravaged Syria to cover the plight of civilians trapped in besieged Homs, under attack by the Syrian army. Only one of them returned. This is their story.
Magnum Chronicles: A Brief Visual History in the Time of ISIS
We present and discuss the first issue, A Brief Visual History in the Time of ISIS, which includes over 40 images from the Magnum archive, exploring the history and effects of the fall-out from ISIS and their actions over the recent past.
A Handful of Dust: a Photography Exhibition by Nish Nalbandian
Award-winning photographer Nish Nalbandian presents his second body of work “A Handful of Dust” humanistic portraits of Syrians in Turkey
East Ghouta: Are we blind to Syria’s latest tragedy?
The escalating humanitarian crisis in the suburbs of Damascus due to the Syrian civil war was the subject of discussion at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 13th March. The area of East Ghouta is said to be one of the last strongholds of resistance by Syrian opposition forces and as such the target of renewed […]
East Ghouta: Are we blind to Syria’s latest tragedy?
With IS’s foothold removed from most of the country, and US Coalition-supported Kurdish forces tied up in a conflict against the Turkish army and its sponsored militias in the north-west Afrin region, it seems that the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and their Russian and Iranian backers are now concentrating on eradicating the last pockets of resistance by Syrian opposition forces.
Rania Abouzeid in conversation with Lyse Doucet
Rania Abouzeid will be discussing her new book No Turning Back: Life, Loss and Hope in wartime Syria with journalist Lyse Doucet.
“I Saw My City Die”
Modern warfare is taking conflict back into the cities, with disastrous effects on civilian populations. Our panel share their experiences of city warfare across the Middle East and Europe.
How to Report on the Middle East
Join our panel to discuss how Anglo-American mainstream media is consistently mis-understanding Muslims and the Arab world in its reporting. The discussion will look into how the UK and US must do more to recognise the diversity between nations in the Middle East.
Screening: No Friends But the Mountains + Q&A
With the independence referendum of Iraqi Kurdistan set for 25th September 2017, The Frontline Club will be hosting a film screening night along with a Q&A with the makers of the film to discuss the possible outcomes.
Screening: Goodbye Aleppo + Q&A
‘Goodbye Aleppo’ is a documentary about a team of four young citizen journalists who film themselves and each other as the battle for Aleppo rages around them in December 2016. They show us what daily life is like in the last days of East Aleppo, as the Syrian Army, the Russian and Iran armies, and Iran-backed militias gradually take the city from opposition fighters.
The Girl from Aleppo: Responding to Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis
Talking via Skype, Nujeen remembered her hometown, Aleppo: “quietness … the citadel .. summer nights…everything…”
A Revolution in Four Seasons
The film, first released in May this year, follows four years in the parallel political lives of Jawhara Ettis and Emna Ben Jemaa – two women at the centre of Tunisia’s radical turn to democracy during the 2011 Arab Spring.
Screening: The War Show + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Andreas Møl Dalsgaard.
Through observational and at times humorous footage of everyday life, The War Show exposes what it is like to be a creative, ambitious young woman living amidst one of the most destructive conflicts of our time. This unprecedented documentary offers a rarely-seen image of youth culture in Syria, following the experiences of a DJ and her friends following Arab Spring of 2011, when the sad realities that follow envelop their hope for liberation.
The Girl from Aleppo: Responding to Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis
Acclaimed journalist Christina Lamb joins as she shares the powerful story of Nujeen Mustafa, a teenager who travelled 3,500 miles from Syria to Germany in a wheelchair. With her quirky observations on the world, Nujeen illustrates the people behind the numbers crossing Europe on a journey that Lamb has followed in person. Unable to be present in person, Nujeen will be joining the discussion over Skype.
Screening: The White Helmets + Discussion
This screening will be followed by a discussion with director Orlando von Einsiedel, producer Joanna Natasegara and others.
As daily airstrikes pound civilian targets in Syria, a group of indomitable first responders risk their lives to rescue victims from the rubble. The White Helmets introduces us to those extraordinary individuals, presenting an arresting and humanising look at one of the most urgent humanitarian crises of our time.
Violent Borders: Border Conflict, Security and the Refugee Crisis
In the absence of legitimate methods of travelling to safer lands, smugglers enjoy a booming trade with a huge supply of refugees willing to pay to escape their home country. Elinor Raikes discussed the irony of a system that refuses entry actually increases risk: “you’re pushing people into these illegal, uncontrolled, unmanaged routes, and actually it’s worse for our security.”
Understanding Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea
Although the ideology is little understood, salafi-jihadism has played a profound role in shaping global politics in recent years. With the unprecedented territorial gains and political rise of groups such as Al-Qaeda and Daesh, islamist extremism has become the most significant socio-religious force of our time. Join us to discuss the origins and evolution of the ideas behind salafi-jihadism, as well as its primary aims and growing prominence in recent years.
Insight with Don McCullin: Irreconcilable Truths
From Northern Ireland to Vietnam, the Falklands to Syria, the photographs taken by Don McCullin have come to define some of the most pivotal events of the past 70 years.
As he publishes Irreconcilable Truths, a definitive retrospective of his life and work, he will be joining us in conversation with Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow, to reveal the stories behind some of the most iconic images of the second half of the 21st century.
Patrick Kingsley’s New Odyssey
Harriet Agerholm sat down with The Guardian‘s migration correspondent and author Patrick Kingsley to discuss his latest book, The New Odyssey: The Story of Europe’s Refugee Crisis.
Filmed and edited by Adam Barr.
Europe’s Refugee Crisis – The New Odyssey
“I felt like [the whole of] Syria was on a dinghy. And we were not welcome.” – Hassan Akkad Heated discussion on the issue of Europe’s crisis in handling the arrival of refugees took place at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 4 May.
The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism
From the rise of anti-Western paranoia and imperialist rhetoric to the intervention in Syria and the annexation of Crimea, a distinct theory of Russian national identity based on ethnicity and geography, Eurasianism, has moved from the fringes of political discourse to become official state policy.
Zaina Erhaim on Syria’s Rebellious Women
Living and working in Aleppo, Erhaim captured the everyday difficulties – the maddening and the mundane – of surviving in a warzone. Shooting the films over the course of 18 months, Syria’s Rebellious Women documents the extraordinary lives of the citizen journalists who bear witness to the horrors taking place in their homeland.
Holy Lands: Sectarianism in the Middle East
Sectarian divides increasingly fuel conflict across the diverse countries of the Middle East, spilling over borders and contributing to ongoing violence in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. Yet in the nineteenth century the region was considerably more tolerant than Western Europe at the time; a high degree of religious pluralism and self-determination were permitted across the Ottoman Empire’s wide-reaching territories. We will be joined by The Economist‘s Jerusalem correspondent Nicolas Pelham and others to discuss the roots of sectarian violence – as well as hopes for recovery from conflict and a return to plurality.