Documentary
Screening: Drone + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Tonje Hessen Schei.
Directed by Tonje Hessen Schei and produced by Flimmer Film, Drone takes an in depth look at the United States’ use of drone technology, questioning how drones are altering the psychology of war. In the midst of fast advancement of technology and international legislation struggling to keep up with it, Schei‘s film displays how drones are rapidly defining a new perception of war.
Preview Screening: We Were Rebels + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Florian Schewe.
We Were Rebels tells the story of Agel, a former child soldier who returns to South Sudan to help build his country. The film accompanies him over a period of two years – from South Sudan gaining its independence in 2011 to the renewed outbreak of civil war in December 2013.
Screening: Burden of Peace + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Joey Boink.
Burden of Peace tells the impressive story of Claudia Paz y Paz, the first woman to lead the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Guatemala. Ravaged for years by a devastating civil war, in which nearly 200,000 Mayan Indians were systematically massacred, the country today is one of the most crime-ridden in the world. Paz y Paz starts a frontal attack against corruption, drug gangs and impunity and does what everyone had hitherto held to be impossible: she arrests former dictator Efraín Rios Montt on charges of genocide against the Mayan Indians.
BBC Storyville Preview: George Blake – Masterspy of Moscow + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director George Carey. In April 1953, George Blake returned to Britain as a national hero, one of a small group of British diplomats who returned alive from three hard years as prisoner of the North Koreans. When the new Queen was crowned a couple of months later, he was among the select few invited to celebrate the day in No. 2 Carlton Gardens, a discreet building overlooking the Mall from where the men who ran Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service were watching the royal procession go by. Little did they know that during his time as a prisoner he had become a Communist and decided to work for the KGB. In The Making of a Traitor, director George Carey speaks to Blake’s close acquaintances, historians and other former spies to chronicle his curious history.
UK Premiere: The World According to Russia Today + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Misja Pekel. Its critics call it a bullhorn for Russian propaganda, Russia Today (RT) claims only to show a different perspective on world events, and presents itself as an alternative to the mainstream media. In Misja Pekel’s The World According to Russia Today, current and former employees, journalists and media analysts dissect RT’s modus operandi. What is it like to work for the channel? How much influence does the Kremlin really have? And is it possible to discern between fact and opinion when Russian interests are at stake?
Screening: AIDependence + Q&A
After many years of receiving a considerable amount of foreign aid, Haiti remains an impoverished and politically fragile state. AIDependence tells the story of the controversial relationship between the people of Haiti and international aid organisations, and exposes the negative side effects of the aid industry, including dependency, corruption, and the corrosion of solidarity and the economy. Using the example of Haiti, the country with the most NGOs per capita, Alice Smeets presents a well-informed analysis of how development projects can give rise to cycles of dependence rather than long-term solutions. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Alice Smeets.
UK Premiere: Banking Nature + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Sandrine Feydel and Denis Delestrac.
Protecting our planet has become big business, with companies like Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Chase promoting new environmental markets. Investors buy up vast swathes of land, full of endangered species, to enable them to sell ‘nature credits’. Companies whose actions destroy the environment are now obliged to buy these credits and new financial centres have sprung up, specialising in this trade. In Banking Nature, directors Sardine Feydel and Denis Delestrac investigate the commercialisation of the natural world.
Screening: Silenced + Q&A
What happened to the man who exposed the CIA’s use of waterboarding? And what are the consequences of making public illegal intelligence gathering techniques by the US government? In this revealing documentary, three prominent whistleblowers explain how everything radically changed after 9/11. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director James Spione.
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 diverse faces of documentary filmmaking.
UK Premiere: Born in Gaza + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Hernan Zin.
Filmed during the 2014 siege of Gaza, which left 507 children dead and 3,598 wounded, Born in Gaza follows a group of young children growing up in a war zone. The film examines the widespread psychological trauma experienced by adolescents coping with injury, fear, and the loss of loved ones. It is estimated that 400,000 children in Gaza are in desperate need of psychological support.
Screening: Tomorrow We Disappear + Q&A
This film will be followed by a Q&A with directors Adam Weber and Jimmy Goldblum via Skype.
Described as India’s “tinsel slum,” the Kathputli artist colony in New Delhi is home to over 1,500 families of puppeteers, acrobats, painters and magicians. That’s all about to change. When the government sells the land to private developers, traditional life is set to be razed for the city’s first skyscraper. Gorgeous and inspiring, Tomorrow We Disappear is a splendid tribute to fading artistry and the tenacity of tradition.
Short Films at LSE
The Frontline Club is delighted to partner with the London School of Economics in programming an evening of short films during the 2015 Literary Festival.
This is an external screening taking place at the Sheikh Zayed Theatre (New Academic Building, 54 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3LJ). The event is free and open to all.
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.
Sneak Preview Screening: Elephant’s Dream + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Kristof Bilsen.
Elephant’s Dream is a portrait of three State-owned institutions and their employees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Filmed in Kinshasa, the third largest city in Africa, Bilsen’s film presents several institutions as sites of ghostly abandonment that mirror the country’s disappearing resources.
BBC Storyville Preview: The Great European Disaster Movie + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Annalisa Piras and executive producer Bill Emmott.
Following the success of Girlfriend in a Coma, director Annalisa Piras brings us an artfully constructed depiction of how Europe is sleepwalking toward disaster, starring Angus Deayton in fiction scenes from a post-EU future. Piras pairs an imagined view from a dystopian future with insightful analysis on how and why things are going so wrong by ordinary Europeans and economic and political experts.
Screening: Days of Hope + Q&A
Every year thousands of Africans leave their families behind in search of a better life in Europe. Ditte Haarløv Johnsen‘s intimate portrayal of everyday life after emigration explores the lives of three very different African immigrants, from three different places, who have embarked on a perilous journey to reach a common destination: Europe. With rawness and dignity, Days of Hope presents personal experiences of migration and the individual struggles faced by African immigrants in Europe. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ditte Haarløv Johnsen.
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.
Screening: All Things Ablaze + Q&A
In November 2013, the protests in Ukraine began peacefully but eventually, after much confusion and chaos, drums, bagpipes and European flags seamlessly turned into bloody resistance. When the first casualties fell on both sides, no matter how black and white it seemed from outside, the line between good and bad blurred. This collective project by Ukrainian filmmakers Oleksandr Techynskyi, Aleksey Solodunov and Dmitry Stoykov, offers a powerful insight into the way the events unfolded in Kiev. This screening is in partnership with Open City Docs Fest and will be followed by a Q&A with director Oleksandr Techynskyi.
Screening: Mubarak’s Egypt + Q&A
In Mubarak’s Egypt, director Charlie Smith investigates America’s role during the final years of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. By then Egypt, once the Arab world’s most important power, had become a regional bit-player stagnating in corruption and cronyism. With contributions from many of the leading players in Cairo and Washington, the film shows how revolution became the only option left to the millions betrayed by the rule of a modern-day pharaoh. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Charlie Smith and executive producer Christopher Mitchell.
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. The evening will include short stories capturing the essence of big issues, films showing life in other parts of the world under difficult or extraordinary circumstances, and stories focusing on one particular remarkable event or person.
Preview Screening: The Billion Pound Base – Dismantling Camp Bastion + Q&A
For eight years Camp Bastion was the power-house of the British Army’s military operations in Afghanistan. Britain’s biggest overseas base since World War Two has now closed down for good. A town the size of Reading with a massive infrastructure – airport, hospital, fast food restaurants – is dismantled bolt by bolt and sent back to the UK. Channel 4 was given exclusive access to the men and women whose job it was to pack up this giant jigsaw puzzle. This Channel 4 preview screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Richard Parry, producer Leslie Knott and executive producer Mike Lerner. Chaired by Siobhan Sinnerton, commissioning editor at Channel 4.
Africa Investigates Al Jazeera Preview: Liberia – Living with Ebola + Q&A
Bringing an African perspective to the devastating spread of the virus, award-winning reporter Sorious Samura tells the inside story of the Ebola outbreak from the worst hit country – Liberia. He also reveals the heroic effort being made by teams on the front line and the deep anger and mistrust held by Liberians towards their government in this time of crisis. This timely and challenging film offers an inside view of a country living with Ebola. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Clive Patterson & Emmy- and BAFTA-winning reporter Sorious Samura. Moderated by Tom Clarke, science editor for Channel 4 News.
Screening: Manhunt + Q&A
For 20 years, a small team of female agents known as “The Sisterhood” tracked the activities of al-Qaeda. Piecing together intelligence, they uncovered this secret terrorist organisation, and warned Washington of this new impending threat. Their warnings were repeatedly ignored, until the 9/11 attacks, when all the rules changed. Manhunt gives a peek into the hidden world of the US intelligence community. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with Greg Barker.
Preview Screening: CITIZENFOUR
In January 2013, filmmaker Laura Poitras was several years into the making of a film about abuses of national security in post-9/11 America when she started receiving encrypted emails from someone identifying himself as “citizen four”, who was ready to blow the whistle on the massive covert surveillance programmes run by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. He turned out to be Edward Snowden. The film that resulted from this series of tense encounters is absolutely unique in the history of cinema: a 100% real-life thriller unfolding minute-by-minute before our eyes.
Preview Screening: Concerning Violence + Q&A
Based on Frantz Fanon’s landmark 1961 book, The Wretched of the Earth, Concerning Violence explores the mechanisms of decolonisation. It is a bold and fresh visual narrative on Africa, told through newly discovered archive material of the struggle for liberation from colonial rule in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Göran Hugo Olsson.
Dirty Truths: Exploring “messy cinema” with the True/False Film Fest
Every year, the True/False Film Festival explores films that cross borders, break the existing rules and push the form forward. This so-called “messy cinema” experiments with re-enactments, highlights complicated filmmaker/protagonist relationships and challenges assumptions about ‘truth’. Join festival co-founder David Wilson, and past True/False filmmakers Sarah Gavron, Kevin Macdonald and Beadie Finzi, as we will thrust our hands in the muck and get a little dirty as we debate the complexities of nonfiction and imagine a messier future.
First Wednesday Screening: 1989
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Frontline Club is pleased to be part of a pan-European simultaneous screening of the new documentary 1989 by award-winning director Anders Østergaard. The creative documentary 1989 is a high-politics drama about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Østergaard recreates the events of 1989 and invites the audience into the secret meeting rooms through a mixture of testimonials, archive material, recreation and reconstructed dialogues of the key political players.
Screening: The Term + Q&A
The Term tells the unique inside story of the Russian opposition movement as Vladimir Putin settles into the Kremlin for his third term, through exclusive access to anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny and other key opposition figures, including Putin’s god-daughter, Ksenia Sobchak, and Solidarnost leader, Ilya Yashin. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with with producer Max Tuula via Skype.
Preview Screening: Attacking the Devil + Q&A
For 14 years, Sir Harold Evans was editor of The Sunday Times. Attacking the Devil focuses on his investigation into the drug thalidomide and how he defied the Attorney General and the political establishment to expose the story. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with co-directors Jacqui Morris and David Morris.
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.