Africa
Libya
Prime minister, Fayez al-Serraj joins forces with the militias and back by Turkey advances to regain Tripoli airport & the lucrative oil reserves. Russian backed, General Haftar’s and his self styled ‘Libyan National Army’ are pushed back however holding the east. Further foreign armies have flocked to the conflict ridden country drawn by the promise brought by Africa’s largest oil reserves and over 1,700km of Mediterranean coastline. What happens next as the country faces a dangerous deadlock promoted by external forces. Our panel discuss conflict, Covid and the rest.
FREE EVENT: BBC Virtual Reality Screening – Damming the Nile
The Frontline Club will be hosting a series of screenings for the launch of the BBC’s first ever Virtual Reality documentary Damming the Nile
African Democracy: Is Gambia an Exception or a Turning Point?
In a series of dramatic events, former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has headed into political exile, ending a 22-year authoritarian reign and a post-election political standoff that threatened to provoke a regional military intervention. President Adama Barrow has vowed to improve his country’s economy, free its political prisoners and create a commission to look into the brutal legacy of his predecessor. But is this really a new era for The Gambia? We will be joined by a panel of experts to discuss how Adama Barrow’s leadership could impact the country and the region.
Patrick Kingsley’s New Odyssey
Harriet Agerholm sat down with The Guardian‘s migration correspondent and author Patrick Kingsley to discuss his latest book, The New Odyssey: The Story of Europe’s Refugee Crisis.
Filmed and edited by Adam Barr.
Preview Screening: The Pearl of Africa + Q&A
The Pearl of Africa is a story about Cleopatra Kambugu, a 28 year old Ugandan transgender woman. Born biologically male, she is transitioning into the woman she knows she was born to be – in one of the most transphobic places in the world. Forced to leave her country and loving boyfriend behind, she sets out to fight for her right to love and, against all odds, to become the first accepted trans person in Uganda.
BookNight with Michela Wrong
We are delighted to welcome Anglo-Italian author and reporter Michela Wrong to present her debut novel, Borderlines. Wrong has been writing non-fiction about African politics for two decades. In this novel, she probes the motives underlying Western engagement with the continent, questioning the value of universal justice and exploring how history itself is forged.
Nowhere People: The World’s 10M Stateless People
By Charlotte Beale On 3 November at the Frontline Club, photojournalist Greg Constantine spoke to UNHCR’s UK representative Gonzalo Vargas Llosa about Nowhere People, Constantine’s body of ten years of photographic work on the world’s estimated 10m stateless people.
Screening: Chameleon + Q&A
He’s a household name in Ghana, but few have seen his face. Investigative journalist Anas Aremewaw Anas is on a mission to ferret out corruption in every corner of his country. Despite his notoriety, Anas’ vigilante methods warrant criticism from some local police, who believe his investigations go too far in luring and catching suspected criminals to achieve sensationalist stories.
The True Cost of Corruption
By Alexandra Sarabia On Wednesday 24 May, an audience gathered at the Frontline Club for a discussion on corruption and its far-reaching implications. Sarah Chayes and Tom Burgis joined freelance journalist and host of Newshour on the BBC World Service, Owen Bennett-Jones, to talk about their experiences in Africa, Afghanistan and beyond. Chayes is an expert on kleptocracy, anti-corruption […]
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: 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.
Violence and the traditions of colonialism
By Will Worley A preview screening of Concerning Violence, followed by a discussion with Swedish director Göran Hugo Olsson, was held at the Frontline Club on Friday 21 November. The film is based upon the seminal anti-colonialism book, The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon, a Martinique born psychiatrist who became involved with armed anti-colonial […]
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.
The Rwandan Genocide: Lessons and Legacy
On 6 April 1994, a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali airport. The events that followed saw bitter ethnic divisions engulf the country: neighbour turned on neighbour and in the space of 100 days an estimated 800,000 Rwandans, mostly Tutsis, were killed. Twenty years on we will look at how communities in Rwanda have been reconciled and whether the international community has learnt its lessons and if it can ensure that such a failure to react will never occur again.
‘You don’t have to be hit by a bullet to be a victim of war’: Reflections of Gino Strada, war surgeon
By Helena Williams “You don’t have to be hit by a bullet or step on landmine to be a victim of war.”
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.
Untangling Mali
By Sally Ashley-Cound The complex situation of the French-led intervention in Mali and the issues in the surrounding region was untangled somewhat on 6 February 2013 at the Frontline Club’s First Wednesday: A new front in the fight against terrorism? Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House was the chair and started things off by asking the […]
HIGHLIGHTS First Wednesday: A new front in the fight against terrorism?
In light of the hostage crisis in Algeria and the French-led offensive against Islamist militants in Mali, on Wednesday 6 February we were joined by Channel 4 News’ Lindsey Hilsum, Lord Ashdown, Ibrahima Diane from BBC Afrique and Wilfred Willey, president of the Malian Community Council in the UK. In a debate chaired by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4′s Broadcasting House we examined […]
Congo Dreams: Hopes and prospects for the future
This event is in association with the Royal African Society and will be held at Conway Hall.
This event is in association with the Royal African Society and will be held at Conway Hall.
The recent fighting involving the M23 rebel group that has put eastern DR Congo back on the front pages has reached a fragile ceasefire. We will be looking at the implications of recent developments and the prospects for the current peace process.
Screening: Justice for Sale + Q&A
Justice for Sale raises questions about the role of the international community and non-governmental organisations within the Congolese judicial system. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Femke van Velzen moderated by Sandra Whipham from BRITDOC.
Covering poverty in an indifferent world
By Lizzie Kendal On Tuesday 27 November, a group of experts gathered at the Frontline Club to discuss the issues and nuances that surround the task of: Covering poverty in an indifferent world. This subject was recently explored by the BBC’s Why Poverty? series in an episode covering the campaigning efforts of Bob Geldof and Bono, and […]
Screening: Land Rush + Q&A
By Joëlle Pouliot On November 12, Land Rush was screened at The Frontline Club as part of a cross-media event entitled Why Poverty?, which uses films, online and TV, to get people talking about poverty. Land Rush explores the land appropriation debate in Mali. 75% of the population are small-scale traditional farmers who compete with […]
Screening: Land Rush + debate
In Land Rush directors Hugo Berkeley and Osvalde Lewat look at the situation in Mali where 75% of the population are farmers, but rich, land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing land for agribusiness farms.
Preview Screening: In the Shadow of the Sun + Q&A
Over 130 people with albinism have been brutally murdered or left mutilated in Tanzania since 2008, fuelled by a belief that albino body parts used in witchcraft will bring about prosperity and good fortune.
Preview Screening: Call Me Kuchu + Q&A
Documents the courageous efforts of Uganda’s first openly gay man David Kato and his fellow LGBT activists.
Writing Libya’s revolution
By Richard Nield Speaking to a packed Frontline Club on 26th April, Channel 4 News’ International Editor Lindsey Hilsum shared a fascinating personal insight into the revolution in Libya last year that overthrew the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi after 42 years in power. In Hilsum’s words, Libya was the "only true revolution of last […]
Is Invisible Children’s KONY 2012 campaign baloney?
With over one hundred million ‘views’ the Kony 2012 video has started a far-reaching debate on the aims and value of a production seen by many as an over-simplification of complex situation.
FULLY BOOKED First Wednesday: KONY 2012 – A force for good?
The recent KONY 2012 campaign video has been met with strong criticism, but nobody can question its effectiveness in reaching a mass audience.
Despite its inaccuracies this campaign has created wider awareness about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) than any news report or campaign that has come before it, so what can be learned? Join us for April’s First Wednesday as we debate whether the KONY 2012 campaign is a force for good or a worrying development in campaigning.
The Tenth Parallel: Africa’s fault line between Christianity and Islam
Download this episode View in iTunes By Nicky Armstrong Solomon Mugera, the BBC’s Africa editor began by describing the balance where Islam and Christianity collide as ‘a delicate pendulum’. For the past seven years award-winning journalist and poet Eliza Griswold has travelled 9,000 miles along this line of collision known as the Tenth Parallel, meeting […]
The Tenth Parallel: Africa’s fault line between Christianity and Islam
From Senegal in the West to Somalia in the East runs a fault line, ‘the knife edge where Islam and Christianity meet’. This area of land separates the continent’s 400 million Muslims from its 500 million Christians.
Join us to discuss Africa’s fault line with New York Times bestseller