The Forum Blog
Documenting Ukraine: The Curious Tale of a Handmade Country + Maidan Shorts
By Francis Churchill As part of the Documenting Ukraine festival held on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 May in partnership with Open City Docs and GRAD, the Frontline Club screened the UK premiere of Anthony Butts’ work in progress: The Curious Tale of a Handmade Country. With astonishing access, Butts followed and filmed Ukrainian rebels in the east of the country […]
Emma Sky: The Unravelling of Iraq
By Alexandra Sarabia On Wednesday 20 May, a conversation between Emma Sky and The Guardian’s Middle East editor, Ian Black, drew a packed house to the Frontline Club. Interested audience members and former colleagues of Sky were present to listen to the highly-regarded Iraq expert, and to celebrate and discuss her latest book, The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities […]
Tell Spring Not to Come This Year: The Transition of Afghanistan to the Afghan National Army
By Graham Lanktree In 2014, western troops drew down combat operations after 13 years of fighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan. This left the Afghan Army to cope with an enemy that some of the most powerful militaries on earth have failed to defeat. In their new documentary Tell Spring Not to Come This Year, […]
This Is My Land: Educating Israel and Palestine
By Heenali Patel On Friday 15 May, the Frontline Club hosted the UK premiere of This Is My Land, followed by an insightful discussion with director Tamara Erde. Screened on the 67th anniversary of Israeli Independence and Nakba Day, the film poses an important and highly relevant question: how does teaching of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affect […]
Granta: In Conversation with Janine di Giovanni and Charles Glass
By Amy McConaghy On Tuesday 5 May, Middle East editor of Newsweek Janine di Giovanni and veteran broadcaster and journalist Charles Glass joined an audience at the Frontline Club for an insightful discussion chaired by Sigrid Rausing, editor of Granta magazine. Reflecting on the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the human realities of war, di Giovanni and Glass discussed their recent […]
Christina Lamb: Farewell Kabul
By Julia Ronyai On Tuesday 28 April, veteran foreign correspondent Christina Lamb joined an audience at the Frontline Club for an insightful discussion on her latest book, Farewell Kabul, which encompasses her experiences over 27 years of reporting from Afghanistan. Looking forward to a great evening with @christinalamb talking to @Sarah_Montague at the @frontlineclub pic.twitter.com/K1gjQsVoz7 — […]
Pure Imagination: Saudi Arabia in Peril?
By Elliot Goat The greatest peril comes not from a lack of analysis but from a lack of imagination.” – Sir William Patey, British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2007-10)
Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of the Gun
By Will Worley On Wednesday 22 April 2015, the Frontline Club welcomed investigative journalist and director of policy and investigations at UK charity Action on Armed Violence, Iain Overton for a discussion on his latest book, Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of the Gun. The event was chaired by ANC former politician and author Andrew […]
Brazil’s Water Crisis: Deforestation and Drought
By Stefano Pozzebon On Tuesday 21 April, the Frontline Club hosted a panel to discuss the water crisis in Brazil and the world’s largest green area, the Amazonian rainforest. Chaired by Andrew Mitchell, chairman of the Scientific Exploration Society, the event was the second in a series entitled ‘Exploration of the Frontline,’ a collaboration between the Scientific […]
Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros: Inspired and Inspiring
By Alex Glynn An eclectic mix of friends and colleagues joined together at the Frontline Club on Monday 20th April, in celebration of two photographers that not only captured the realities of war, but also explored the frontiers of artistic imagery.
We Were Rebels: Former Child Soldiers in South Sudan
By Ratha Lehall On Friday 10 April, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of We Were Rebels, which was followed by a Q&A with director Florian Schewe. The film focuses on the struggles of South Sudan, the word’s youngest country, following its independence and through the eyes of Agel, a former child soldier during the civil […]
Burden of Peace and the pursuit of justice in Guatemala
By Francis Churchill It has been almost 20 years since Guatemala emerged from a civil war that saw 200,000 native Mayans systematically murdered by Government troops. Today the country is still rife with crime and corruption. Nearly 6,000 people are murdered in the country each year, and very few cases result in prosecution. Burden of […]
Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone War
By Graham Lanktree Since the attacks of 11 September 2001, drones, or as the military prefers to call them “unmanned aerial vehicles,” have winged from an obscure surveillance tool to a central weapon in conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. To explain why, investigative journalist and Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize-winner Chris Woods spoke […]
The Life and Work of Eve Arnold
By Amy McConaghy “She was propelled by this extraordinary curiosity to find out about the country and the people. She really was an anthropologist in many ways.” Speaking at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 14 April, journalist and author Janine di Giovanni reflected on the life of photographer Eve Arnold and her in-depth, immersive approach to her […]
Drones and the ‘War on Terror’
By Francis Churchill Drone warfare has become the defining policy of Obama’s war on terror. Unmanned aerial vehicles provide a unique solution to the unpopular politics of war, granting the United States the ability to take out targets in the remotest parts of the world without any risk to American life. Drone, directed by Tonje Hessen […]
Rice Pudding and Lego Men: A Blueprint for Revolution
By Elliott Goat “Creativity always wins out over power.” – Srdja Popovic To mark the release of his new book, Blueprint for Revolution: How to use rice pudding, Lego men, and other non-violent techniques to galvanise communities, overthrow dictators, or simply change the world, the Frontline Club hosted a conversation with Serbian author and activist […]
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 […]
The New Censorship and the Global Battle for Press Freedom
By Josie Leblond What are journalists worth in an age where anyone can tell their own story online? Has their diminishing value led to the growing violence against journalists across the world? This is the argument that executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Joel Simon, put forward at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 17 March. […]
George Blake: Masterspy of Moscow
By Helena Kardova On Monday 16 March, the Frontline Club hosted a preview screening of Masterspy of Moscow – George Blake, directed by George Carey. The film, which will be broadcast on Monday 23 March by BBC 4 Storyville, traces the life story of the legendary George Blake, a British diplomat who became a longterm double agent […]
The American Whistleblowers who will not be Silenced
Whether they spoke out against torture or mass surveillance, government officials who blew the whistle on the deplorable changes made to U.S. legislation after the 9/11 attacks have been left bankrupted, broke and broken. The documentary Silenced, directed by James Spione and screened at the Frontline Club on Monday 9 March, follows the cases of three prominent […]
Lynsey Addario: Stories of a War Photographer
By Francis Churchill On Tuesday 3 March, veteran photojournalist Lynsey Addario shared stories from her years covering conflict and human rights crises with a packed audience at the Frontline Club. In a discussion chaired by Alexia Singh, editor-in-charge of Reuters Wider Image, Addario shared insights from her time embedding with the US military in Afghanistan, her capture […]
Nature: A Financial Commodity?
By Robert Van Egghen “We use nature because she’s valuable, and we lose nature because she’s free,” comments Pavan Sukhdev in Banking Nature, which screened at the Frontline Club on Monday 2 March. Sukhdev, the CEO of Gist Advisory, is just one of the multitude of economists, analysts and activists interviewed in the film, which […]
Shorts Night: Far from Home
By Heenali Patel On Friday 27 March, the Frontline Club partnered with the London School of Economics to host a series of films for the 7th annual LSE Literary Festival. The external screening, at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, was packed out with members of the public for a night of short films exploring the foundations of identity […]
Afghanistan: Lessons Of War
By Isabel Gonzalez-Prendergast On 25 February, a panel of experts convened at the Frontline Club for a discussion on the war in Afghanistan and its ongoing legacy. Chaired by BBC Afghanistan correspondent, David Loyn, the debate spanned the period from 11 September 2001 to the present day.
World Stories: bringing documentaries to “the poorest people”
By Javier Pérez de la Cruz “What World Stories and the Why Foundation are doing is bringing very important, powerful documentaries to greater attention and to international audiences,” said Richard Porter, controller of BBC World Service English, on Tuesday 24 February at the Frontline Club. The event marked the launch of the World Stories series, an […]
Delhi’s Endangered Artist Colony
By Georgia Luscombe On Monday 23 February, a screening of Tomorrow We Disappear transported an audience at the Frontline Club in rainy central London to the vibrant Kathputli slum in Delhi. The film follows the families of acrobats, magicians, painters and puppeteers resident in the artist colony of Kathputli as they battle the authorities who have […]
UK Premiere of Born in Gaza
By Francis Churchill Although the latest wave of violence has ended, the suffering in Gaza has not. This was the story that director Hernan Zin wanted to tell with his new film Born in Gaza, which held its UK premiere at the Frontline Club on 20 February. Born in Gaza weaves together the testimonies of […]
Beyond the limit: Peter Greste recounts a year in Egyptian prison
By Richard Nield In an emotional and inspiring interview at the Frontline Club on 19 February, little more than two weeks after his release from an Egyptian prison, Australian journalist Peter Greste spoke of his experience of being incarcerated for more than 400 days for nothing more than doing his job as a journalist. Greeted by […]
Libya: “Stuck in a Zero-Sum Game”
By Richard Nield Photo credit: Richard Nield In a week in which Egypt sent F16 jets into Libya in response to the broadcast of an Islamic State video showing the execution of at least a dozen Egyptians, the Frontline Club held a timely event examining the reasons behind Libya’s slide into civil war. The event […]
Me-Mo: Pushing the Limits of Visual Storytelling
By Alexandra Sarabia The plethora of technology now available to communicate different forms of journalism, across a variety of platforms, has allowed journalists more freedom in their storytelling process. This is the driving force behind Me-Mo, a new multimedia magazine created by award-winning freelance photojournalists, Manu Brabo and Fabio Bucciarelli, in partnership with web-developing group, Libre. On […]