Documentary
We Are Legion – The Story of the Hacktivists
We Are Legion tracks the evolution of hacktivism from the ludicrous website 4chan- a mish-mash of memes, revolting images and heated discussions about Manga- through to the formation of Anonymous, which builds its backbone from declaring an international war on Scientology and gains it political purpose from Wikileaks and the battle for free information on the internet. Through interviews with hacktivists, scholars and the victims of hacking, we learn more about what motivates some members of this diverse group of young idealists.
Screening: We Are Legion – The Story of the Hacktivists + Q&A
We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists explores the historical roots of early hacktivist groups like Cult of the Dead Cow and Electronic Disturbance Theater, and tells the story of how they evolved into groups such as Anonymous. Director Brian Knappenberger traces the birth of a powerful democratic online activism which in these rapidly changing times is beginning to make corporations and governments very nervous.
Club Classics: Khodorkovsky
Opt for our £15 special offer for both the screening and a classic from our clubroom menu, 6pm onwards.
Khodorkovsky takes an explosive look into the life of former titan of the Russian oil industry, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, during his trial in Russia for an oligarchical rule of the market. After returning to his homeland from exile, Khodorkovsky is immediately arrested for challenging then President Putin, and a journey into the mind of one of Russia’s most powerful people begins.
Club Classics: Restrepo
Opt for our £15 special offer for both the screening and a classic from our clubroom menu, 6pm onwards.
In the most dangerous place in Afghanistan, the violently contested Korengal Valley, a platoon of fifteen American soldiers fight a seemingly endless war against an Al-Qaeda stronghold. Told through the voices of the soldiers themselves, Restrepo takes the viewer on a harrowing journey through the lives of the men serving abroad without the interjection of the vox populi usually heard on the news.
FULLY BOOKED Screening – Kony: Hunt for the World’s Most Wanted
Join us for a preview of BBC Panorama‘s Kony: Hunt for the World’s Most Wanted, followed by a Q&A with reporter Sorious Samura, Ron McCullagh of Insight News TV and producer Andrew Bell.
Somewhere in the vast, dense jungles of central Africa is hidden Joseph Kony, one of the world’s most wanted men. In the wake of the infamous “Kony 2012” internet campaign to bring him to justice this year, BAFTA-winning reporter Sorious Samura investigates the myths surrounding Kony and travels to the front line of the fight to bring one of Africa’s most bizarre and brutal leaders to justice.
Club Classics: Last Train Home
Opt for our £15 special offer for both the screening and a classic from our clubroom menu, 6pm onwards.
Each year in China more than 130 million migrant workers travel home for the New Year’s holiday — the one time they’ll reunite with family all year. The mass exodus constitutes the world’s largest human migration. Amid this chaos, director Lixin Fan focuses on one couple, Changhua and Sugin Zhang, who embark upon a two-day journey to see their children.
Club Classics: Out of the Ashes
Opt for our £15 special offer for both the screening and a classic from our clubroom menu, 6pm onwards.
An inspirational documentary following the extraordinary quest of the Afghan cricket team to qualify for the 2011 World Cup. Against a backdrop of war and poverty, Out of the Ashes, traces the remarkable journey of a team of young Afghans as they chase a seemingly impossible dream – shedding new light on a nation beyond burqas, bombs, drugs and devastation.
Screening: Addicted in Afghanistan + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Jawed Taiman. Well known as one of the world’s leading producers of heroin, Afghanistan has over a million drug addicts, many of them children. This award-winning documentary tells the timeless story of two addicted teenagers, 15-year-old Jabar and 14-year-old Zahir and how their families have […]
Screening: Shadows of Liberty + panel debate
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Jean-Philippe Tremblay. What impact has the decline of the newspaper industry and the growing influence of a few corporate giants had on objective news reporting? Shadows of Liberty is an in-depth examination of the media crisis in the United States, where 166 newspapers have folded […]
Screening: Deadline Every Second + Q&A
How do you keep your distance in a war zone? How do you switch from covering a fashion show to photographing the collapse of the Twin Towers after the 9/11 terrorist attacks? How do you remain a fly on the wall when civilians are being injured? Or make a unique picture of the British Prime […]
Screening: We Went to War + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Michael Grigsby and Rebekah Tolley. In 1970, director Michael Grigsby portrayed three young men returning home after spending a year at the frontline of the Vietnam War. The award-winning documentary I Was a Soldier focused on how David Johnson, Dennis Bolinger and Lamar Wyatt were […]
Club Classics: Shooting Robert King
Opt for our £15 special offer for both the screening and a classic from our clubroom menu, 6pm onwards.
Made over 15 years by club founders Vaughan Smith and Richard Parry the film is an intimate journey with war photographer Robert King, following his ambition to win the Pullitzer Prize for photography in the most dangerous warzones of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Screening: It’s all in Lebanon
It’s all in Lebanon is a journey through modern Lebanon, a country torn between contradictions. Wissam Charaf explores the significance of the image in Lebanese society, showing opposing campaigns of political movements, Hezbollah videos of heroic martyred fighters and music videos of high-heeled, scarcely dressed pop stars.
Storyville Sneak Preview Screening: Hitler, Stalin & Mr Jones
In the 1930’s Welsh journalist and foreign correspondent Gareth Jones’ greatest scoop was to reveal the starvation to death of millions in Ukraine, caused by Stalin’s policies. In the political reality of those days of competing ideologies there was a fine line between journalism and spying. Hitler, Stalin & Mr. Jones explores to what extent Jones’ own dual role may have contributed to his early death.
Storyville Screening: Hitler, Stalin & Mr Jones
In the 1930’s Welsh journalist and foreign correspondent Gareth Jones’ greatest scoop was to reveal the starvation to death of millions in Ukraine, caused by Stalin’s policies. In the political reality of those days of competing ideologies there was a fine line between journalism and spying. Hitler, Stalin & Mr. Jones explores to what extent Jones’ own dual role may have contributed to his early death.
Screening: Haiti – Where Did the Money Go?
In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti in early 2010, the international community pledged a record amount of aid to help rebuild the country. Ten months after the earthquake director Michele Mitchele travels to Haiti with a seemingly simple question: “where did this money go?”
Brussels Business: Screening and Q&A
By Jim Treadway Once more, the power of money and its threat to democracy became the focus at Frontline, where the documentary The Brussels Business was shown on Friday evening and followed by a Q&A with directors Friedrich Moser and Mattieu Lietaert. The Brussels Business analyzes the European Union’s growing lobby industry in Belgium’s capital, now the world’s […]
5 Broken Cameras: Screening and Directors’ Q&A
By Jim Treadway "So many films have been made about the Israel-Palestine conflict", Israeli flimmaker Guy Davidi remarked to an audience at the Frontline Club on Friday night. But the documentary 5 Broken Cameras he made with Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat was "much more important than just another objective film about the movement," he said. It was […]
External Screening at Curzon Soho: Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
Tickets: Book online on the Curzon’s website.
What will a big corporation do in order to protect its brand? Swedish filmmaker Fredik Gertten personally experienced how far one was prepared to go in the aftermath of releasing his previous film Bananas!*. That first documentary follows the lawsuit that 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers successfully brought against the fruit giant Dole Food Company. Just before Gertten left Sweden to attend the world premier of his film at the 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival, the film is mysteriously removed from competition.
Masterclass with Fredrik Gertten: the dark side of PR and Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
Filmmaker Fredrik Gertten took on the multinational corporation Dole Food Company and it’s PR army and won. Upon the release of Gertten’s blockbuster documentary Bananas!*, which recounts the law suit 12 Nicaraguan plantation workers brought against Dole, his tenacity and journalistic mettle were tested to their limits when he was hounded by Dole’s lawyers and PR firms.
Gertten will be at the Frontline Club to give a masterclass in filmmaking against the odds. He will give a detailed account of his ordeal and answer questions about his films and filmmaking in general.
Moderated by John Sweeney of the BBC’s Panorama.
Screening: Ukraine – From Democracy to Chaos + Panel Debate
In Ukraine: From Democracy to Chaos Jill Emery and Jean-Michel Carre explore this complex country, its geopolitical importance in Europe, and its unfinished struggle for democracy.
FULLY BOOKED Insight with Nick Fraser – Why Documentaries Matter
Editor of BBC Storyville Nick Fraser will be discussing the evolution of documentary, its defining nature and the future for this form of storytelling.
Exclusive Preview Screening: Europe’s Last Dictator
By Nicky Armstrong Europe’s Last Dictator is a thought-provoking film about Belarus and its president Aleksander Lukashenko. The panel gathered to discuss Lukashenko’s brutal authoritarian style of ruling and what the future holds for Belarusians under a state that actively carries out torture, state-sponsored murder and kidnap as part of a crackdown of the opposition. Stephen Sackur of […]
Afghan Army Girls: Q&A with first-time director Lalage Snow
The screening of Afghan Army girls ended with a roaring sound of applause at the Frontline Club yesterday evening.
Assad: Western idealism and Eastern autocracy
“I would be more pessimistic if I had to rewrite the last sentences,” said Christophe Ayad, co-director of Syria: Assad’s Twilight.
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 […]
Screening: Darkhead
By Charlene Rodrigues Torn by a lack of cultural identity, a Schwarzkopf or “Darkhead” is the word European born immigrants use to define themselves in Austria. Arman T. Riahi’s documentary of the same name is a portrait of immigrant life in Austria, and follows Nazar, an Austro-Iranian 25-year-old rapper, as he and his […]
Mama Illegal
By Nicky Armstrong Women leaving Moldova and crossing the border into Romania and then on to European countries to work illegally has become a mass phenomenon that is tearing families apart. Bordering Romania and the Ukraine, Moldova is the poorest country in Europe, with an unemployment rate of 80%. Mamma Illegal follows three women between […]
Robert Mugabe… What Happened?, asks Frontline
By William Turvill A sell-out crowd last night gathered at the Frontline Club for an exclusive screening of Robert Mugabe… What Happened?, followed by a question and answer session with the film’s director and producer. The documentary, which premiered at last year’s Encounters South Africa International Documentary Festival, gives a historical account of Mugabe and […]
Frontline screening: Tweets from Tahrir
By: Will Turvill The Frontline Club last night hosted an exclusive screening of an Al Jazeera documentary Tweets from Tahrir. The film, set to be broadcast on the network for the first time on Thursday, portrays the uprising in Egypt from the perspective of five Twitter users active in the Tahrir Square protests. […]