Meet the men and women behind Yasser Arafat, the former Chairman of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO.

Mixing a rich collection of archive footage with the candid and poignant memories of his family, friends, colleagues, and peers, Richard Symons creates an insightful, intimate, and well documented account of the life and controversies of Yasser Arafat.

The key figures in his life help us to understand Arafat’s decisons about the use of violence, how he survived over 40 assassination attempts and the mystery that continues to surround his death. 

The Price of Kings is a groundbreaking documentary series with unprecedented access to some of the most controversial, influential and powerful leaders of our time.

Director: Richard Symons
Running Time: 75 minutes
2011

Created in 1989 by a small group of young British men and women FNTV was a pioneering international news agency for freelance video journalists that was 20 years ahead of its time. The agency closed in 2003, by which time half of its camera-people had been killed while filming around the world. The dramatic story of the agency is told by David Loyn of the BBC in his book, recently published in paperback, Frontline: Reporting from the World’s Deadliest Places.

Frontline’s cameramen and women were the first to pick up small format, consumer, cameras. Their successes included securing the first western media interview with Bin Laden, the first film of the stinger missiles that altered the course of the 1980’s war in Afghanistan, key footage of the Romanian revolution, the only uncontrolled footage of the ground conflict in the first Gulf War and footage of the Kosovo conflict that led to British and NATO involvement. 

It is free to attend but please register in advance by clicking the "book" link above. Complimentary drinks will be provided courtesy of Chivas Regal.

This exhibition has been made possilbe through a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund with which the Frontline Club Charitable Trust is currently digitising and cataloguing 1,000 hours of FNTV footage. 

Created in 1989 by a small group of young British men and women FNTV was a pioneering international news agency for freelance video journalists that was 20 years ahead of its time. The agency closed in 2003, by which time half of its camera-people had been killed while filming around the world. The dramatic story of the agency is told by David Loyn of the BBC in his book, recently published in paperback, Frontline: Reporting from the World’s Deadliest Places.

Frontline’s cameramen and women were the first to pick up small format, consumer, cameras. Their successes included securing the first western media interview with Bin Laden, the first film of the stinger missiles that altered the course of the 1980’s war in Afghanistan, key footage of the Romanian revolution, the only uncontrolled footage of the ground conflict in the first Gulf War and footage of the Kosovo conflict that led to British and NATO involvement. 

It is free to attend but please register in advance by clicking the "book" link above. Complimentary drinks will be provided courtesy of Chivas Regal.

This exhibition has been made possilbe through a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund with which the Frontline Club Charitable Trust is currently digitising and cataloguing 1,000 hours of FNTV footage. 

The deaths of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Libya in late April were a grim reminder of the dangers that journalists face in covering conflicts like the one that has been raging in Libya.

Getting the best images possible means that photographers and video journalists in particular need to get hair-raisingly close to the action, often putting themselves in danger.

Reuters photographer Andrew Winning and video journalist Inigo Gilmore will speak at the Frontline Club about shooting on Libya’s front line. Presentations of their work will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A about the reality of covering events in Libya. The talk will be moderated by multimedia photojournalist John D McHugh.

British photographer Andrew Winning has been working for Reuters for 15 years. Twelve of these he spent in Mexico as the chief photographer there. He specialises in hard news, covering natural disasters, political and civil unrest as well as editing assignments and sports. Libya is only the second armed conflict he has covered, the other being President Aristide’s ousting in Haiti.

Haiti has also been a key country in Inigo Gilmore‘s career. After the 2010 earthquake, Gilmore covered the aftermath of the disaster for Channel 4, tracing the journey of an injured baby to a hospital in the UK and the eventual reunion with her mother. His films about baby Landina won him the RTS Television Journalism Independent Award.

John D McHugh‘s career spans the gap between photojournalist and filmmaker. His multimedia work from Afghanistan won him the 2007 Frontline Award and in the past he has worked for the Associated Press, The Guardian, Channel 4, Al Jazeera and Agence-France Presse. McHugh‘s experiences of embedding in Afghanistan with US, Canadian and Afghan troops has given him well-rounded insights on a very different kind of war. He spoke at the Frontline Club in 2009 about his work in Afghanistan. McHugh recently made a film about Bahrain during the Arab Spring, and has just returned from a month in Kandahar.

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Just announced: John Laurence will be joining the panel.

Join us for this special event to discuss the iconic war reportage, to mark 35 years since the end of the Vietnam War.

This special event brings together reporters who covered Vietnam to reflect on the war that changed the way the public think about conflict.

Saturation bombing, worldwide protests, napalm, agent orange and an estimated two million lives lost.

Has any war since had such an impact on the public psyche? Why was the reaction to the carnage in Vietnam so strong? Was it because of a lack of conviction in the cause the US was fighting for? Or was it because of these reporters and photographers and their work that so poignantly captured the brutality of war?

Jon Swain was the only British journalist in Phnom Penh when it fell to the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. His coverage of these events and their aftermath won him the British Press Award for Journalist of the Year. His story was retold in the Oscar-winning film, The Killing Fields and his bestselling book River of Time. Swain wrote an article about covering Vietnam in his early 20s in the most recent issue of Frontline: A Broadsheet.

French war photographer Patrick Chauvel was only 18 when he started covering the Vietnam war. In the years that followed he has covered over 20 wars and in 1995 won the World Press Photo award for Spot News. He is the author of two books in French, Rapporteur de Guerre and Sky.

John Laurence, author of the prize-winning memoir The Cat from Hue, covered the war for CBS News from 1965 to 1970 and made the multi-award winning documentary The World of Charlie Company. He also covered 15 other wars in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

This special event will be moderated by Michael Nicholson OBE, former senior foreign correspondent for ITN. Nicholson reported for over 25 years from 15 conflicts, including Vietnam. The film Welcome to Sarajevo and his book Natasha’s Story were both based on his experiences covering the war in Bosnia.

The Frontline Club is screening Mo & Me as part of the Capturing Conflict Film Festival showcasing a selection of the most important films about the risks journalists and filmmakers take in order to get their stories out.

No one captured Africa’s pain and passion more incisively than Mohamed Amin, photographer and frontline cameraman extraordinaire. He was the most famous photojournalist in the world, making the news as often as he covered it. ‘Mo’ trained his unwavering lens on every aspect of African life, never shying from the tragedy, never failing to revel in the success. Through the gaze of his camera lens, he showed the world what some were afraid to see and what most people wished they could ignore.

His coverage of the 1984 Ethiopian famine proved so compelling that it inspired a collective global conscience and the greatest act of giving in the 20th century. He and his work served as both the inspiration and as a catalyst for We Are The World/USA for Africa; Live Aid; Heal the World and Live 8. His reporting shamed the world into action and undoubtedly rescued a country from absolute destruction by famine.

In a career spanning more than 30 years, ‘Mo’ was our eyes on the frontline in every situation and his honest unwavering approach to photojournalism earned him the unconditional respect of both friends and enemies alike. Mo covered every major event in Africa and beyond, braving 29 days of torture, surviving bombs and bullets, even the loss of his left arm in an ammunition dump explosion, to emerge as the most decorated news cameraman of all time.

Mo’s remarkable life was cut tragically short in November 1996 when hijackers took over an Ethiopian airliner forcing it to crash land in the Indian Ocean killing 123 passengers and crew. Mo died on his feet as he attempted to negotiate and reason with the terrorists.

By any standards, Mo’s life was truly extraordinary; action-packed, full of pain and passion and inseparable from the troubled chronicle of emergent Africa.

We are screening the Emmy and Bafta winning film Cry Freetown as part of our Capturing Conflict Film Festival which showcases a selection of the most important films about the risks journalists and filmmakers take in order to get their stories out.

A brutal portrayal of what happened in Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone in January 1999.

Sorious Samura shot the film at great risk for his own life, keenly aware of the fact that the strong images he recorded were the only thing that could shake the world from its indifference to the plight of his countrymen, women and children.

28 minutes
An Insight News Television production

We are screening Somalia: Al-Qaeda’s New Haven as part of our Capturing Conflict Film Festival which showcases a selection of the most important films about the risks journalists and filmmakers take in order to get their stories out.

Unreported World visits one of the most dangerous places on earth to investigate the growth of a militant Islamic network and asks whether Somalia’s fertile training ground for Islamic terrorists could provoke a regional civil war.

A decade has passed since the UN military mission in Somalia ended following the deaths of 18 US special forces and 1,000 Somalis in the so-called "Blackhawk Down" battle.

The state has collapsed completely, with warlords controlling the country and more than half a million people killed over the last ten years by war and famine. But the warlords’ hold on the country is now being superseded by a new, well-funded Islamic network. America alleges the militants’ leader Shayk Hasan Dahir Aweys is linked to al-Qaeda, and other contacts tell Reporter Aidan Hartley that rich Saudi businessmen are backing the jihadi network, which is training 3,000 men to spread Islamic revolution all over the African continent.

We are screening Unseen Gaza as part of our Capturing Conflict Film Festival which showcases a selection of the most important films about the risks journalists and filmmakers take in order to get their stories out.

Is what has been presented on our screens and in our papers a true reflection of events on the ground in Gaza? And how do these reports differ to those aired in other countries?

With reporters unable to enter Gaza, attempted media manipulation from both sides and strict regulations governing what images that can be shown on British TV, Jon Snow asks a range of journalists from at home and abroad about the challenges of getting the full story.

Featuring images that haven’t before been aired on mainstream television, Jon also examines the difference between the coverage at home and that in the US, Europe and the Middle East. He compares the coverage available on terrestrial channels with satellite TV and the internet and investigates the extent to which some British Muslims are by-passing the mainstream British media and looking elsewhere for their information.

To what extent does the choice of news outlet affect opinion of the conflict?

We are screening Death in Gaza as part of our Capturing Conflict Film Festival which showcases a selection of the most important films about the risks journalists and filmmakers take in order to get their stories out.

"We just wanted to see what happens to ordinary kids, growing up in extraordinary circumstances." – Saira Shah, Reporter

In spring 2003, filmmaker James Miller and reporter Saira Shah, following the success of their Peabody-winning films "Unholy War" and "Beneath the Veil," set out to take a first-hand look at the culture of hate that permeates the Middle East. They captured the lives of three Palestinian children growing up in the bullet-riddled streets of Gaza, indoctrinated in the creed of Jihad, and had planned to show the Israeli side next. But on May 2, in the midst of filming, Miller was shot to death by an Israeli tank, falling victim to the conflict he covered.

Death in Gaza begins in Nablas, where Miller and Shah witness an explosion that kills several Palestinians suspected of being suicide bombers. "We’re trying to understand how people learn to hate so deeply that they’re prepared to die in order to kill," says Shah. "So we’re looking for the next generation, the children who will make either peace or war." In Nablas, that generation is playing dangerous games with the Israelis, as children shower the tanks that patrol their street with rocks, taunting the soldiers inside.

Leaving Nablas, the production team heads to Rafah, a border town in Gaza, where they become acquainted with three children: Ahmed, a soccer-loving 12-year-old; his best friend Mohammed, also 12; and Najla, a 16-year-old girl who lives in a particularly dangerous area that Israelis are attempting to turn into a security zone.

As Ahmed and Mohammed fire toy guns and play games of "Jews and Arabs" in the streets by day, the real-life militants come out in the streets of Rafah by night – as do the Israeli tanks and night-vision troops trying to track them down. Miller and Shah pay a visit to a paramilitary group that has enlisted Ahmed to do reconnaissance for them. Asked why they want to endanger the life of such a young boy, the men shrug that there are thousands more just like him. The cult of martyrdom runs deep in this region, as Palestinians celebrate each death by parading in the streets with freshly printed posters that turn the latest person to die into a new martyr.

After visiting Mohammed and his mother (who delivers a heartfelt plea for an end to talk of suicide and killing) and then watching the boys construct homemade explosives called "quwas," Miller’s crew makes its way to Najla’s region. They arrive in the midst of Israel’s largest operation there in three years, with armored tanks and bulldozers blasting neighborhoods to rubble in search of militants, in the process leaving civilians homeless. Though vulnerable, Najla’s house has been spared for now.

Around 5:00 p.m., boys gather near the border to throw stones at Israeli bulldozers. Later that night, attempting to leave the area by waving a white flag through the darkness, Miller assumes that the Israeli soldiers – actually Bedouin Arabs, equipped with night-vision gear, who had earlier been calling out to the journalists in Arabic – will recognize him as a journalist and let his team pass. Instead, shots ring out, killing Miller instantly. The tragedy is captured by a local film crew.

"We asked them not to print a poster of James," says Shah, "but they wouldn’t listen. So, on May the second, 2003, the extremists gained another martyr. The rest of us lost James." Miller never got the chance to film the Israeli counterparts to Ahmed, Mohammed and Najla. And to date, no one has been held accountable for his death.

Six months after the shooting, Shah received a video message from Ahmed declaring how much he misses Miller. Ahmed has stopped working for the paramilitaries, and now wants to be a cameraman, as does Mohammed.