Women’s rights
Screening: Daughters of Bangladesh + Q&A Female Voices in Storytelling
Daughters of Bangladesh Garment Factory Workers is a moving film featuring and created by the young daughters of women textile workers. Our expert panel of directors, writers and journalists will discuss the challenges and solutions of getting marginalised female voices represented via the medium of storytelling.
Preview Screening: India’s Ladycops + Q&A
For the first time, cameras go inside a police station run by and for women, revealing a unique perspective on what’s really going on in Indian society. This surprising documentary follows Parmila and her special team of scooter-mounted female officers who are focused on preventing the harassment of women.
U.S. Under the Lens: TRAPPED + Q&A
At this very moment, a woman’s reproductive rights in the United States are not clear. Since 2010, state legislatures have passed more than 250 laws restricting abortion clinics and their doctors. From mandating the width of hallways to requiring physicians to have active admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, these measures are forcing clinics across the country to shut down in epidemic numbers. Lawyer-turned-acclaimed-filmmaker Dawn Porter picks up the plight of the doctors and clinic operators along with the countless women relying on these facilities to uphold their legal right to safe abortion.
He Named Me Malala: Education and the Refugee Crisis
“We learn so much from Malala, she tells us that we have a voice in the West but we take it for granted”, Guwali Passarlay.
Screening: He Named Me Malala + Panel Discussion
This screening will be followed by a panel discussion on access to education for refugee girls with the Malala Fund’s Director of Policy and Advocacy Philippa Lei and others, moderated by BBC Radio 4 Today correspondent Sima Kotecha.
He Named Me Malala is an intimate portrait of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by the Taliban and severely wounded by a gunshot when returning home on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The then 15-year-old was singled out, along with her father, for advocating for girls’ education, and the attack on her sparked an outcry from supporters around the world. She miraculously survived and is now a leading campaigner for girls’ education globally as co-founder of the Malala Fund.
Screening: Boxing for Freedom + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Juan Antonio Moreno Amador and Silvia Venegas.
Sadaf Rahimi is the most accomplished female boxer in Afghanistan and well known within her community in Kabul, though her talent for the sport attracts social ridicule as well as fame. Sadaf’s boxing and academic achievements have led her into public visibility and turned her into a role model for many Afghan young women – although her athletic career has been jeopardised by death threats and interference from the Afghan Boxing Association, which barred her from travelling to compete in the 2012 London Olympics.
Tackling Nicaragua’s Abortion Ban
By Amy McConaghy On Monday 30 March the Frontline Club hosted a screening of A Quiet Inquisition, followed by an insightful discussion with director Alessandra Zeka. Recently previewed at the London edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, A Quiet Inquisition has been described by the Huffington Post as a film that “every human rights […]
Screening: A Quiet Inquisition + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Alessandra Zeka.
At a public hospital in Nicaragua, OBGYN Dr Carla Cerrato must choose between following a law that bans all abortions and endangers her patients or taking a risk and providing the care that she knows can save a woman’s life. In A Quiet Inquisition, the emotional core of the story – the experiences of the young women and girls who are seeking care — illustrates the ethical implications of one doctor’s response.
First Wednesday Screening: India’s Daughter + Panel Discussion
In 2012, the brutal gang rape on a Delhi bus of a 23-year-old medical student, who later died from her injuries, made international headlines and ignited protests. India’s Daughter is an impassioned plea for change, paying tribute to a remarkable and inspiring young woman. The film explores the compelling human stories behind the incident and the political ramifications in India.
Following the screening we will be joined by director Leslee Udwin and others to discuss the international reactions to the film, the aftermath of the Indian broadcast ban, and the greater issue of gender based violence.
Screening: Nowhere to Call Home + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Jocelyn Ford.
Nowhere To Call Home tells the powerful story of Zanta, a Tibetan woman who moves to Beijing against the wishes of her in-laws so that her young son can receive an education. Widowed at 28, Tibetan farmer Zanta defies her tyrannical father-in-law and after her husband’s death refuses to marry the family’s only surviving son. When Zanta’s in-laws won’t let her seven-year-old child go to school, she flees her village and heads to Beijing where she becomes a street vendor.
Screening: Casablanca Calling + Q&A
In Morocco, the world’s first female Muslim leaders are setting out to change their country: empowering women through the teachings of Islam and challenging the attitudes which breed extremism. Through personal stories, family dramas and everyday lives, Casablanca Calling takes us into the heart of this quiet social revolution through the lives of the women at its forefront. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Rosa Rogers and producer Hilary Durman.
Seeds of Hope: Sanctuary and recovery in the DRC
By Ratha Lehall On Monday 14 July, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of Seeds of Hope, a documentary which focuses on the effect of rape in Eastern Congo, where it has become a widely used weapon of war. The film centres around one woman, Masika, who is herself a victim of rape, and her determination to provide a […]
On the frontline of defending women’s rights: A conversation with Human Rights Watch
By Anna Reitman The Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch joined The Guardian’s Liz Ford on Tuesday 13 May to discuss the highs and lows of the challenges faced in improving the lives of women and girls around the world. The event took place as the world’s attention focuses on Nigeria’s kidnapped schoolgirls and subsequent failure to […]
Screening: Shorts at the Frontline Club
Join us for an evening of short documentaries, from different parts of the world, covering a wide range of topics. Shorts at the Frontline Club showcases moving, striking and funny films, exploring the many different faces of documentary filmmaking.
Preview Screening: After Tiller + Q&A
While nine American states allow late-term abortions, only four doctors in the country are willing to perform them. In the wake of the 2009 assassination of practitioner Dr George Tiller in Kansas, After Tiller intimately explores the highly controversial subject of third-trimester abortions. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with co-director Lana Wilson.
Out of the Shadow
By Dan Tookey In the Shadow of a Man was shown to a packed audience at the Frontline Club on Monday 16th September. The documentary explores the lives and opinions of four very different Egyptian women in their fight for women’s rights. The film cuts across class and geography but finds similar threads of resistance […]
Screening: In the Shadow of a Man + Q&A
In the wake of the Egyptian revolution, four women speak of their fight for the future and what it means to be a woman in Egypt. Although Wafaa, Suzanne, Shahinda and Badreya are each from vastly different backgrounds and generations, they are deeply connected by the current changes in Egypt. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Hanan Abdalla, moderated by Yasmin El Derby.
Preview Screening: The World Before Her + Q&A
In The World Before Her filmmaker Nisha Pahuja illustrates the tension between traditional and modern perspectives toward women in today’s India, through the Miss India contest and unprecedented access to the fundamentalist Hindu women’s training camps. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Nisha Pahuja.
Sneak Preview Screening: Forbidden Voices + Q&A
Followed by a Q&A with Barbara Miller and Iranian blogger Farnaz Seifi
On the Internet, their voices are skillfully shielded, but the famous bloggers Yoani Sánchez, Zeng Jinyan and Farnaz Seifi aren’t afraid of the dictatorial regimes in their respective home countries of Cuba, China and Iran. Director Barbara Miller follows these brave young rebels on their dangerous journey. She traces their use of social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to denounce and combat human rights and freedom of speech violations in their countries.
Voice of Afghanistan: Screening and Q&A with Jawed Taiman
By Jim Treadway “The life we had. The flowers, the trees,” an elder Afghan recalls about the village in which he has lived, and where director Jawed Taiman grew up before his family fled the Soviet invasion in 1979. “Just look at it now,” the man gestures. “It’s completely dry.” This conversation opens Taiman’s latest […]
Not Invisible: London Premiere of The Invisible War
By Lizzie Kendal On October 22 the Frontline Club hosted the London Premiere of The Invisible War, followed by a Q&A with Emmy-nominated producer Amy Ziering. The Invisible War explores the devastating emotional and physical effects of sexual assault within the US military. In the Q&A producer Amy Ziering, explained how the emotional side of […]
London Premiere: The Invisible War
Today, a female soldier serving in the US army is more likely to be raped than killed or injured by enemy fire. The Invisible War, by Oscar and Emmy-nominated director Kirby Dick and Emmy-nominated producer Amy Ziering, reveals the extent of sexual assault in the armed forces and investigates the institutions that cover it up.
FULLY BOOKED Screening: Afghan Army Girls
For the first time in post-Taliban Afghanistan the national army is recruiting women, but only very few have stepped forward for training. In Afghan Army Girls, photojournalist and first-time director Lalage Snow reveals the difficulties, threats and personal changes these women go through as well as the complicated status they have in Afghan society. Followed by Q&A with director Lalage Snow.
The Trouble With Girls – raising daughters as sons in Afghanistan
By Ivana Davidovic “Why do we need to give a girl a boy’s face to give her freedom?” That is the question asked by Azita Rafhat, a former member of the Afghan parliament, who opted for a radical decision to raise one of her four daughters as a boy, having succumbed to the still prevailing […]