What makes a smart, curious young woman from the UK, Germany or Tunis leave her life behind to join the most brutal terrorist regime of the twenty first century? Where is the line between victim and collaborator and how do we judge these young women who have been both victims and perpetrators of harm?

Moaveni, who has covered instability and violence in the Middle East as a journalist for two decades, will talk about what drove her to cover this challenging, complex and controversial story, and the closeness she felt to its places, characters. What do the stories of these ISIS recruits reveal about the portrayal and identity of muslim women in the west?  And is this problem called terrorism far more complex, political, and relatable than we generally admit,?

Moderated by journalist Razia Iqbal.

Speakers:

Azadeh Moaveni is the author of Lipstick Jihad, and the co- author, with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening. She has lived and reported throughout the Middle East, and speaks both Farsi and Arabic fluently. As one of the few American correspondents allowed to work continuously in Iran since 1999, she has reported widely on youth culture, women’s rights, and Islamic reform for Time, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, and the Los Angeles Times. She lives with her husband and son in London. 

Razia Iqbal is a BBC News journalist and special correspondent, reporting for outlets across the BBC. From 2011 Iqbal has presented Newshour on the BBC World Service. She has also presented Talking Books on the BBC News Channel. She was previously the corporation’s arts correspondent. She has also worked as a political reporter, and as a foreign correspondent in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

This year’s nominees can be found here. The winners will be announced at the Frontline Club Awards Ceremony on Thursday 24 October 2019. 

The ceremony will be hosted by Elizabeth Palmer, Senior Foreign Correspondent at CBS News.

The keynote speaker will be award-winning Syrian journalist, Waad Al-Kateab.

The event is open to members or by invitation.

OFFICIAL SECRETS is based on the true story of Katharine Gun, a British whistleblower who leaked information to the press about an illegal NSA spy operation designed to push the UN Security Council into sanctioning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Observer newspaper later broke the story and Gun was subsequently arrested and charged under the Official Secrets Act, sparking a public outcry.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the people behind the true story, Katharine Gun and journalist Martin Bright, as well as the film’s director Gavin Hood. It will be moderated by FT film journalist Danny Leigh.

Complimentary drinks will be available from 7pm before the screening starts at 7:30pm.

BOOK YOUR PLACE HERE

Tim Page took some of the most confronting images of the Vietnam War. As a young photojournalist he spent six years covering the conflict for outlets including TIME-LIFE, UPI, PARIS MATCH and ASSOCIATED PRESS, and became one of a small group of iconic photographers whose arresting images of war woke the world up to what was going on. 

Page was also a man made mythical before his time, the inspiration for Dennis Hopper’s photojournalist in Apocalypse Now, he had a reputation for getting closer to the action than most of his colleagues. Embedded with the US military, he went everywhere, covering everything.  As a result, he was injured four times, once or twice almost fatally. 

Since then Page has spent decades covering events from Timor-Leste to Afghanistan and Cuba to Cambodia. His photographs are held by London’s Tate Gallery and Washington’s Smithsonian. He was recently named as one of The 100 most influential photographers of all time and has been the subject of many documentaries, two films and the author of ten books.  He now lives in Brisbane Australia and this is his first visit back to the UK in 14 years.

Tim will be talking to journalist Jon Swain about his work and career, focussing on Vietnam and Cambodia. A selection of his prints will be on sale following the event.

Marines coming ashore March ’65

For Sama (97′) is an intimate and epic journey into the female experience of war. Told as a love letter from a young Syrian mother to her daughter, it tells the story of filmmaker Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to her daughter Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her.

Waad’s camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as she wrestles with an impossible choice – whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

A favourite of critics, audiences and film festivals, For Sama has already won 23 awards, including the Golden Eye at Cannes Film Festival 2019, the Audience Award at Sheffield Doc Fest 2019 and the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW.

The film will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with filmmakers Waad Al-Kateab and Edward Watts, and Executive Producer Nevine Mabro.

SPEAKERS:

Waad al-Kateab (Director). In January 2016, Waad al-Kateab started documenting the horrors of Aleppo for Channel 4 News in a series of devastating films titled Inside Aleppo. These reports and others became the most watched pieces on the UK news programme and received almost half a billion views online and 24 awards including the 2016 International Emmy for breaking news coverage. Waad was a marketing student in Aleppo when protests against the Assad regime swept the country in 2011. She taught herself how to film and started recording the human suffering around her as Assad forces battled rebels for control of Aleppo. She stayed through the siege documenting the loss of life and producing some of the most memorable images of the six-year conflict. When she and her family were evacuated from Aleppo in December 2016 she managed to get all her footage out. Waad lives in London with her husband Hamza and two daughters.

Edward Watts (Director) is an Emmy award-winning, BAFTA nominated filmmaker who has directed over twenty narrative and documentary films that tell true stories of courage, heroism and humour from across the world, covering everything from war crimes in the Congo to the colourful lives of residents in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. His 2015 film Escape from ISIS exposed the brutal treatment of the estimated 4 million women living under the rule of the Islamic State and, for the first time on television, told the extraordinary story of an underground network trying to save those it can.  His first narrative short film Oksijan told the incredible true story of a 7- year-old Afghan boy’s fight to survive as he is smuggled to the UK in a refrigerated lorry and the air inside begins to run out. It premiered at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2017 and has since played at prestigious film festivals around the world.

Nevine Mabro (Executive Producer) is Deputy Editor of Channel 4 News. She has led the programme’s agenda- setting foreign output, enhancing its ability to get extraordinary coverage out of some of the world’s most dangerous places. She finds and nurtures new talent both on screen and off, and works with many independent filmmakers. She executive-produced Waad al-Kateab’s award- winning Inside Aleppo coverage for Channel 4 News in 2016 as well as Marcel Mettelsiefen’s Agony in Aleppo short film that won the 2013 Emmy and was developed into the Oscar- nominated film Watani.

Cold Case Hammarskjöld, is a controversial investigation into the mysterious plane crash over Zambia that killed idealistic U.N. General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld  in 1961 as he was attempting to negotiate a ceasefire in the Congo . Winner of the 2019 World Cinema Documentary Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival, this documentary has been described at “provocative”, “singular” and “jaw-dropping”. 

Followed by a discussion with the film’s lead investigator and producer Andreas Rocksén.

Reviews

“It’s impossible to emerge from this film without being shaken to your core. Mission accomplished: mind blown.” – Washington Post

“Cold Case Hammarskjöld may be the most unusual and upsetting film you’ll see this year.” – Time Out

This BBC News Arabic investigation filmed undercover in Baghdad and Karbala – some of Iraq’s holiest shrines – exposes a secret world of sexual exploitation of children and young women by a religious elite. Muslim clerics are grooming vulnerable girls and pimping them out, using a controversial religious practice, illegal under Iraq law, called ‘pleasure marriage’.  This allows a man to pay for a temporary wife, but is being used by some clerics to exploit women and children for money. A young mother widowed by an ISIS bomb alleges she became the victim of a prostitution ring run by a senior cleric.  Some clerics are captured on camera offering girls for sale in pleasure marriages and giving religious advice on sexual acts with children that are supposedly permitted during pleasure marriages.

The 60 minute film screening will be followed by a discussion/Q&A with reporter Nawal Al-Maghafi and the film’s production team.

Speakers/Production Team:

Reporter, Producer Nawal Al-Maghafi is an Award-Winning BBC Special Correspondent who specialises on the Middle East.

Producer, Director Patrick Wells is a BAFTA-winning documentary producer/director specialising in foreign affairs.

Producer Mais Albayaa is an investigative journalist with more than 16 years of experience. She started working in Iraq after the invasion in 2003 and has covered Iraq, Syria and other countries in the Middle East for the Guardian, C4 and the BBC.

One of the investigators tasked with tracking down and arresting those responsible for that massacre was Vladimir Dzuro, a former homicide detective from Prague. Ahead of the English publication of his book, The Investigator, Dzuro will be at Frontline to talk about how he and his team tracked down and arrested one of the key perpetrators, Slavko Dokmanovic, the mayor of Vukovar and the first in a long list of war criminals to be tried and convicted by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Dzuro will be joined by Joanna Korner, Senior Prosecutor for the ICTY between 1999-2004 and 2009-2012, who was responsible for prosecuting high-level leaders charged with grave breaches of international humanitarian law, as well as Kevin Curtis, a former colleague and ex-English police officer who participated in the arrest of Slavko Dokmanovic. Journalist and author Tim Judah will be moderating the discussion.

This event is organised in collaboration with the Czech Centre London. For more information on the book, please visit this website.

Reviews for The Investigator: 

“The Investigator is a raw and unique first hand account of an extraordinary pursuit of justice in the face of absolute horror.” – Julian Borger, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and World Affairs Editor for the Guardian

“Personal accounts of investigations of war crimes, such as this one… breathe life into the abstract project of accountability and show the challenges of operating a criminal justice system in an international environment.” – Louise Arbour, Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1996-99)

Speakers:

Toby Cadman is a barrister specialising in war crimes, international terrorism, extradition and human rights. He has been senior legal counsel to the chief prosecutor of the Bosnian war crimes chamber, and defence counsel at the Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal. He is a co-founder of The Guernica Group and Joint Head of Chambers at Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers.

Kevin Curtis is a former Detective Sergeant with the UK police and from July 2008, was the Chief of Investigations for UNICEF, retiring in February 2018. Between 1995 and 2004, he headed an team that investigated war crimes and grave breaches of international humanitarian law at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and in 1999 he led the investigations into atrocities committed by Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, then the Republic of Serbia. He was involved in some notable arrests of war criminals, who following arrest, subsequently stood trial in the International Court in The Hague. In 2004, he was engaged by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the Oil for Food Programme in Iraq, (the Paul Volcker Committee) as a team leader. In late 2005 he became Investigations Adviser to the audit and investigation section of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), until joining UNICEF.

Vladimír Dzuro worked as a criminal detective between 1983 and 1995, initially investigating violent crime with the Criminal Investigation Department in Prague and later at the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Prague. In 1994, Vladimír actively participated in the work of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in the former Yugoslavia. In April 1995, he began a ten-year stint as an investigator with the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Vladimír currently works as Chief of Headquarters Office at the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services in New York.

Joanna Korner worked as Senior Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia between 1999-2004 and 2009-2012, prosecuting high-level leaders charged with grave breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL). She has lectured on IHL to Iraqi Judges and Cambodian Defence Lawyers. In June 2004, she was appointed Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) for services to The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Judge Korner has been a Grade “A” Advocacy Trainer since 1996. She was the Head of International Faculty of Advocacy Training Council of England & Wales from 2005 to 2012. She has organised and taught on numerous advocacy training courses in the UK and internationally.

Moderator

Tim Judah is a journalist and author and covers the Balkans and other regions as a correspondent for The Economist. He has worked for many major publications and broadcasters, notably writing wartime reportage from Afghanistan to Ukraine for the New York Review of Books. He is the author of three books on the Balkans—The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Kosovo: War & Revenge and Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know—and published a book on the conflict in Ukraine – In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine in 2016. From 1990 to 1991, Judah lived in Bucharest and covered the aftermath of communism in Romania and Bulgaria for The Times and The Economist. After that, he moved to Belgrade for both publications in order to cover the war in Yugoslavia. He moved back to London in 1995 but continues to travel to the region frequently. He is the president of the Board of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and a member of the board of the Kosovar Stability Initiative (IKS).

(Image: Vladimir Dzuro reads the charges and the ICTY version of the Miranda rights to Slavko Dokmanovic. (Col. David S. Jones [Ret.])

The film is divided into six chapters, with the first two focusing on the kidnappings and murders of countless women in the Mexican cities of Juarez and Ecatepec. From there, the film reveals that these abductions go further; journalists, union leaders, social justice activists and priests are among the many victims of cartel-related violence. The most damning parts of the documentary come when the federal and state governments’ involvement in these atrocities is revealed.

An audience favourite, Elie’s beautifully shot and original film has won numerous awards including the FACT:AWARD at CPH:DOX 2019, Grand Prize for Best Canadian Feature at Montreal International Documentary Festival 2018 and Audience Award & Special Mention at FICUNAM 2019.

The screening (duration: 152′) will be followed by a short Q&A with the director, moderated by award-winning filmmaker James Jones.

Speakers

Julien Elie made his film debut in 2002 with The Last Meal, his first documentary about the death penalty in Texas. Several years later, after many travels in Mexico, he decided to do a film about the surge of violence in this country. Dark Suns is his first film in fifteen years.

Last month, at the Edinburgh Television Festival Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4’s highly respected Head of News and Current Affairs, delivered a funny, brutal and hard-hitting MacTaggart lecture that has been described as a clarion call for broadcast journalism to step up to the plate at a time when national and international democracy is being undermined. 

In her speech, Byrne called out television’s current lack of bravery, innovation and commitment and called on commissioners and producers to embrace serious analysis, respect its viewers and return to clever, controversial and difficult TV that challenged contemporary society and helped to shape society for the better.

Byrne cited television’s lack of diversity, its reliance on a posh white male elite and recalled its sexist past, arguing that the industry’s failure to become more ethnically diverse undermines its important role as a mediator between politicians and the public. At a time when politicians are increasingly unwilling to give in-depth interviews on television and radio, she called on them to hold themselves up to proper scrutiny and accountability..

At its heart was a serious message about the role and responsibility of the free press in a democracy and a plea for television journalists to stand up and speak truth to power.

Join Dorothy Byrne in conversation with Jodie Ginsberg, Chief Executive of Index on Censorship in what promises to be a hard-hitting, honest and illuminating discussion.

Speaker:

Dorothy Byrne is Head of News & Current Affairs at Channel Four Television. During her tenure, the Channel 4 News and current affairs programmes have won numerous BAFTA, RTS, Emmy Awards and others.

Dorothy was made a Fellow of The Royal Television Society for her outstanding contribution to television and received the Outstanding Contribution Award at the RTS Journalism Awards in 2018. She has received a BAFTA Scotland award for her services to television and has also won the Factual Award given by Women in Film and Television. She is the chair of the Ethical Journalism Network an alliance of reporters, editors and publishers that works to build trust in news media and strengthen journalism around the world through training, education and research.

She is a former World In Action producer and editor of ITV’s The Big Story. Before joining Channel 4 she also produced arts programmes and executive produced history series for the channel.  She is a Visiting Professor at De Montfort University where Channel Four supports an MA in Investigative Journalism. 

Chair:

Jodie Ginsberg is Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, a London-based organisation that has published work by censored writers and artists and campaigned globally on freedom of expression issues since 1972. Prior to joining Index, Jodie worked as a foreign correspondent and business journalist and was UK Bureau Chief for Reuters news agency. She sits on the council of global free expression network IFEX and the board of the Trust for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and is a regular commentator in international media on freedom of expression issues.

Presented in partnership with the Ethical Journalism Network

  Watch the video stream of Dorothy Byrne: the MacTaggart Conversation