The Forum Blog
Alex Gibney’s We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks divides the Frontline audience
By Alex Glynn On Friday 28 June there was a palpable sense of anticipation among the Frontline Club audience, ahead of the preview screening of Alex Gibney’s most recent documentary We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. The film chronicles the history of WikiLeaks and looks at the roles Bradley Manning and Julian Assange played in what was referred to as […]
The Act of Killing: Holding up a Dark Mirror to Society
By Ratha Lehall The second Between the Lines Festival follow-up event took place at the ICA on 29 June, and was a showing of the director’s cut of the Act of Killing followed by a Q&A with director Joshua Oppenheimer. This remarkable film provides a look at the 1965-66 anti-Communist mass killings in Indonesia from the perspective of the former members […]
With Iran’s new president, cautious optimism
By Jim Treadway The election of cleric Hassan Rouhani to Iran’s presidency last week has Iranians and the world turning their heads to wonder: is the Islamic Republic changing direction? Will Rouhani’s promised pragmatism and reform replace the hardline conservatism of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? An expert panel convened at the Frontline Club on 26 June, […]
Fortress – Glimpses into Transnistria
By George Symonds On Wednesday 19 June, the Frontline Club audience burst into spontaneous applause to the precision choreography of a Transnistrian military parade. The footage was part of the documentary film Fortress, shown at the preview screening of Open City Docs Fest, supported by the Czech Centre London as part of One World Echoes in London. […]
Reconstructing Haiti
By Joëlle Pouliot Nearly three and a half years after the deadly earthquake that shattered Haiti, the country is still in crisis. Thousands of displaced Haitians live precariously in tented camps, while cholera continues to take lives. On 17 June at the Frontline Club, a panel of reporters and experts from the humanitarian aid community, […]
US Foreign Policy – overwhelmed by its own eloquence?
By Caroline Schmitt A president’s second term is usually regarded as the one in which he has the potential to reinvent the world. On 13 June, a panel chaired by author and journalist Michael Goldfarb explored the foreign policy legacy of the Obama administration. Kim Ghattas, BBC State Department correspondent and author of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton […]
A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma
By Laura Hughes On 11 June, the Frontline Club hosted Wendy Law-Yone, in conversation with the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall. She was discussed her new memoir based on the manuscripts of her father, Ed Law-Yone, the founder of Burma’s The Nation newspaper. It was not until 20 years after his death that Law-Yone found the […]
One for Ten: Victims of Death Row
By Natricia Duncan On Monday 10 June a packed Frontline Cub witnessed a revolution in documentary-making as the One For Ten team presented their ground-breaking, crowdfunded online documentary series on death row exonerees. Co-directors Will Francome, Mark Pizzey and producer Laura Shacham described how they set off on a road trip across the US to make ‘live’, […]
Under the Wire: In conversation with Paul Conroy
By Anna Reitman Photojournalist and filmmaker Paul Conroy joined Channel 4 News’ international editor Lindsey Hilsum at the Frontline Club on 6 June, to give a personal account of his experiences in Syria, detailed in his new book Under the wire: Marie Colvin’s Final Assignment. Encouraged by his friends, Conroy wrote the book as he recovered […]
Will the Arab Spring stretch to Iran after election day?
by Sally Ashley-Cound With just over a week to go until Iranians go to the polls to vote for a new president, the Frontline Club’s First Wednesday panel on 5 June discussed the question: who will be the next president of Iran and why does it matter?
El Gusto: the “people’s music”
By Ratha Lehall On Tuesday 4 June, The Frontline Club hosted a screening of El Gusto. Despite a 6-hour flight delay and a broken ankle, director Safinez Bousbia made it up to the Frontline Club just in time for a lively Q&A. The film follows Bousbia on her journey to reunite a group of around 30 Jewish and Muslim Chaabi musicians, […]
State Builders: the making of South Sudan
By Richard Nield On 31 May, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of State Builders, a unique film documenting the immense challenges faced by the new state of South Sudan, which became the world’s newest nation on 9 July 2011. Directed by Florence Martin-Kessler and Anne Poiret, the film gives a penetrating insight into what was […]
Reflections with Alex Thomson
By Caroline Schmitt ‘Reflections’ at the Frontline Club brings well known journalists to the stage to look back on their careers. Incorporating video clips, still images and articles selected by them, the host Vin Ray describes it as “a cross between Desert Island Discs and This is your Life”. It is held in association with the BBC […]
Writing Revolution: The Voices from Tunis to Damascus
By Helena Williams On Tuesday 29 May, the Frontline Club showcased ‘Writing Revolution: the Voices from Tunis to Damascus’, a book which celebrates some of the best new writing to emerge from the Arab Spring. The collection of articles and essays focusses on what the revolutions, which have rumbled across North Africa and the Middle […]
Club Quiz 16th May
The Frontline Club Quiz returned on Thursday the 16th of May, and was a resounding success with hundreds of pounds raised for the Fixers Fund. ‘The Orchestras’ were victorious by half a point, and won some fine wines courtesy of our drinks sponsors Chivas. The Quiz will return once more next month, so if you think you can compete enter a team today.
Orania is not for sissies!
By Pete Ford Director Tobias Lindner brought his fascinating documentary Orania to a packed Frontline Club on Monday 20 May. Described as “a remote village in the barren centre of South Africa – an ‘intentional community’ where only white Afrikans people live”, Orania is relatively unknown globally. But Lindner, a German who has spent long enough […]
Shorts at the Frontline Club: a cinematic journey around the world
By George Symonds On Friday 17th May, a series of short films curated by the Frontline Club took the audience on a cinematic journey from Sarajevo to Prague, to Kabul, Aleppo and Moscow. We started in Sarajevo with The Fuse: or How I Burned Simon Bolivar, directed by Igor Drljača. “Dear God, I don’t know if you exist. My […]
Nic Dunlop on not trusting photography alone and a brave new Burma
By Sally Ashley-Cound Bangkok-based photographer Nic Dunlop, in conversation with BBC foreign correspondent Fergal Keane, previewed his new book Brave New Burma at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 15th May. Twenty years in the making, Brave New Burma explores the country from the ongoing civil war to its deceptively tranquil cities, using both photographs and words […]
Russia’s surveillance state
by Anna Reitman Cold war politics have never seemed more relevant in the 21st century. Relations between the US and Russia are reaching new lows over geopolitical hot spots while the White House dodges questions about the detainment in Moscow of an alleged CIA recruiting agent. These might seem like old stories, but a decidedly […]
Bradley Manning on trial: A case for or against his country?
By Jim Treadway In 2010 U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning committed the largest security breach in US history, handing the classified Afghan War Diary, Iraq War Logs, and 250,000 State Department cables to Wikileaks. Imagery like that of an American helicopter team gunning down citizens and journalists on a Baghdad street in 2007 has been […]
Tackling impunity
By Alex Glynn Stark facts and personal tales of attacks on the press took the centre stage at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 8th May, in a session chaired by BBC Global News director Peter Horrocks
Greenland holds its breath: the duality of change
By Lizzie Kendal On Monday 29 April, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of The Village at the End of the World, followed by a Q&A with director Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane, 2007). “They say in Greenland that they’re holding their breath about their future,” she explained as she introduced the film, which explores the challenges […]
Is North Korea the ticking bomb we thought it to be?
By Alex Glynn Analysts and experts treated the audience to rare accounts and informed insight into the North Korean regime’s mindset on Tuesday 15th April at the Frontline Club. BBC East Asia Editor Charles Scanlon hosted the discussion on the hot topic of North Korea’s threat – is it imminent, or is it overstated? – with former British Ambassador […]
A live issue: Tamil oppression in Sri Lanka
by Sally Ashley-Cound On 23rd April 2013, The Frontline Club held the first UK preview screening of award winning television director Callum Macrae’s new documentary, No Fire Zone – The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka. No Fire Zone uses forensically verified footage from civilian mobile phones and government forces cameras to chronicle the last 138 […]
Creating a new society: Russia from 1960 to 1990 and beyond
by Sally Ashley-Cound On Thursday 18th April at the Frontline Club, authors Irina Prokhorova and Oliver Bullough talked about their experiences of Russia which have informed the research and writing of their two very different books. Prokhorova’s book 1990: Russians Remember a Turning Point charts the missing year after 1989 when the Soviet empire fell […]
The future of British journalism: “We are not diminishing, we are growing.”
By Caroline Schmitt A reception and two discussions about the future of British journalism was held at the Fronline Club on April 17, 2013. Sam Coates, Banking Editor at The Times, hosted the first panel of young journalists and addressed the audience of representatives of 35 of the country’s best student papers: “I wanna give […]
Sex and society in a changing Arab world
By Alexandra Glynn There’s nothing like the subject of sex to get a room of adults giggling, as Shereen El Feki proved when she came to talk about her new book, Sex and the Citadel at The Frontline Club on Tuesday 16 April. Speaking to columnist and broadcaster, Jenni Russell, the former Economist writer and Al Jazeera […]
Kony and Uganda – Peace vs. Justice? Or a different conversation altogether?
By Jim Treadway On Monday 15th April, the Dutch Embassy and Time magazine partnered to co-organise a screening at the Frontline Club of Peace vs Justice: a documentary about the violence of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), particularly against children, in northern Uganda. An expert panel discussion followed.
Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill investigates from Afghanistan to Yemen and the US Congress
by Sally Ashley-Cound On Friday 12th April the Frontline Club hosted the first UK screening of Dirty Wars; author and investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill‘s chilling account of his journey from a remote corner of Afghanistan to Yemen, the American Congress and Somalia as he investigated the rise of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Producer […]
A country’s struggle between the glamourous world of Eurovision and the unrealistic demand for democracy
By Caroline Schmitt The screening of “Amazing Azerbaijan!” on Thursday, 11th April was followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Liz Mermin. The film contrasts the two-faced Azerbaijan: on one hand there was the glamour before and during Eurovision, carefully constructed by the government; the other side is that investigative journalists like Khadija Ismayilova regularly […]