The Forum Blog
Kenya’s past, present and future: Words of caution and grounds for optimism
By Holly Young The event on the 11 March at the Frontline Club was a panel debate analysing the previous week’s much anticipated election results in Kenya. The panel, chaired by Audrey Brown, producer and presenter on BBC Focus on Africa and Network Africa, examined the implications of Uhuru Kenyatta election as Kenya’s new President, […]
The Grey Line: Portraits of doubt and courage
By Jim Treadway Jo Metson Scott spent the past five years photographing American and British soldiers who spoke out against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Using their letters and portraits, her book The Grey Line explores the soldiers’ reasons for doing so, and the fates that have awaited them. Metson Scott introduced The Grey Line […]
Afghani children held hostage in the drug trade
By Nishat Ahmed Children pay the heaviest price for Afghanistan’s drugs trade – according to a powerful account by journalist Najibullah Quraishi and producer Jamie Doran in their documentary Opium Brides. Opening to a packed screening at the Frontline Club on Friday 7 March, the film exposed the failure of the Afghan government and its […]
Syria: Who should help and when?
By Sally Ashley-Cound Paddy O’Connell started this month’s First Wednesday with a tribute to Marie Colvin who was killed in Homs a year a ago. After introducing the panel O’Connell got straight on to the news announced today by Foreign Secretary William Hague that the UK will be sending a £13m package of logistical and […]
When reporting from Haiti, Mali or Syria, are our cameras turned off too quickly?
By Caroline Schmitt What is the relationship between the extent of a disaster, its media coverage and the resulting help from charities and the public? A panel of Sky News and BBC journalists, DFID and experts with a background in humanitarian aid analysed these dependencies at a ShelterBox event hosted by the Frontline Club on March 5 […]
Calls to support fledgling freelancers as more flock to war zones
By Helena Williams Calls to support the next generation of independent journalists working in conflict zones were made just days after French freelance photographer Olivier Voisin was killed by shrapnel in Syria.
Chavez’s Legacy
By Jim Treadway As cancer threatens Hugo Chavez’s life, an expert panel considered his legacy before a sold-out audience on 26 February. “He’s this wonderful presence [in person],” remarked Rory Carroll, who spent from 2006 t0 2012 in Caracas as The Guardian‘s chief correspondent for South America, and whose latest book Commandante profiles Chavez in depth.
Mission accomplished? Weak police as the allies retreat from Afghanistan
By Alex Glynn Reporter Ben Anderson joined a panel at the Frontline Club on Monday 25 February to discuss his new 30-minute documentary for BBC’s Panorama on the allied troops’ legacy in Afghanistan and the condition of the Afghan police. Will Pike, a former British Army Major in Afghanistan, and Dawood Azami, former BBC World Service Bureau Chief in Kabul, joined Anderson to […]
The media & the military: an amicable separation?
By Sally Ashley-Cound The past, present and future of British military engagement with the media was the centre of a lively debate at the Frontline Club on 20 February 2013. Chaired by Stewart Purvis, professor of television journalism at City University London and former Editor-in-Chief and CEO of ITN.
The immense power of the state
By Laura Hughes A screening of Reportero took place at the Frontline Club on Friday 15 February, followed by a Q&A over Skype with the director Bernardo Ruiz. Ruiz’s documentary follows the story of reporter Sergio Haro and his colleagues at Zeta, an independent Mexican weekly newspaper. Since Zeta was founded in 1980, three of […]
Window of opportunity for the DRC
By Richard Nield The coming year could be a window of opportunity for the international community to tackle the violence and lawlessness that has claimed more than 5 million lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past 15 years. The panel: Kassim Kayira, Noëlla Coursaris Musunka, Jean-Roger Kaseki, Patrick Smith, Ben Shepherd. Photograph: […]
Connecting film with debate: Between the Lines launch event
By Caroline Schmitt Between the Lines, a festival dedicated to connecting new journalism with documentary and film-making, was launched at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 12 February, 2013. Documentary programmer, Wotienke Vermeer, introduces Between the Lines at the Frontline Club. Photography: Caroline Schmitt Elizabeth Wood, one of the festival curators, introduced the Club to the […]
‘Prisoner of conscience’: preview screening of British drama Complicit
By Nishat Ahmed The moral dilemma of being compliant in the ill-treatment of terror suspects was tackled at the Frontline Club with a preview screening of the feature-length TV drama, Complicit, on Monday 11 February. The audience watched a compelling account of the complexities faced by British intelligence services in their attempt to foil terror plots. […]
Defending justice in the DRC
By Holly Young The event on the 8 February at the Frontline Club was a screening of Justice for Sale, followed by a Q&A with Femke van Velzen, one half of a documentary duo – twin sisters who make up IF Productions. For Femke and Ilse, this is their third film about the Democratic Republic of Congo. […]
Al Qaeda in Yemen – Part II: Poverty, frustration and exploitation
By Alex Glynn A lively discussion between journalists, audience members and Yemeni diplomats followed the screening of In the Hands of Al Qaeda at the Frontline Club on Monday 4 February. The documentary, which saw Jamie Doran, and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, along with their camerawoman Safa Al Ahmad, travel to Yemen, investigating how al Qaeda in the […]
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 […]
Transforming Egyptian Journalism
By Richard Nield The key to the development of the media in Egypt is not the transformation of journalists but the transformation of institutions, argues Naomi Sakr in her new book, Transformations in Egyptian Journalism. “I wanted to demonstrate that journalism as such may be the least of the problems in the Egyptian media,” said […]
Al Qaeda in Yemen – Part I: Divisions, distrust and mutual hatred
By Tom Meade Kalashnikovs, dilapidated cities and drone destruction gripped the audience at an overflowing screening of In the Hands of Al Qaeda on Monday 4 February at the Frontline Club. Award-winning journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and producer Jamie Doran were on hand after the screening to answer questions on Yemen, al Qaeda and the making of their latest film.
Around the world in five short films
By Anna Reitman Shorts at the Frontline Club on 1 February showcased five documentaries that highlight different ways of telling non-fictional stories. Four of the filmmakers were on hand to discuss the themes and process behind their work. The first film of the evening, Afghanistan: The forgotten war, was shot by Vaughan Smith, who spent […]
The blight of our societies
By Jonathan Couturier Inequality blights our societies – the panel that gathered for the Inequality Debate at the Frontline Club on 30 January had no doubts about that. Charles Sennot, of GlobalPost, put the problem into perspective: the gap between rich and poor in developed economies is growing so fast that inequality is reaching developing country levels. You […]
Living the American Dream
By Natricia Duncan Regal thrones, miles of marble and fairy-tale affluence graced a packed Frontline Club on Tuesday 28 January. Award winning director Lauren Greenfield was on hand for a Q&A, and the audience was treated to the compelling story of a family who lived the American dream, but had a rude awakening when the […]
Alma’s violent confessions
By Nicky Armstrong On Friday 25 January, the Frontline Club hosted it’s first live film screening – interactive web-documentary, Alma, a Tale of Violence by Isabelle Fougère and Miquel Dewever-Plana. Joined by award-winning e-producer Alexandre Brachet and moderated by Himesh Kar from WorldView, the audience took part in a unique viewing, following the ‘route’ of the […]
There will be blood
By Nigel Wilson Photograph: Mahvish RazzaqWith foreign troops preparing to leave Afghanistan, a panel of experts gathered at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 23 January to assess the prospects for the country. With the Western media narrative focused on troop withdrawal, chair David Loyn urged the panel to gaze into their crystal balls and predict […]
How to gain commercial success – Third party: PhotoTALK with WPO
By Sally Ashley-Cound For the second PhotoTALK event with the World Photography Organisation the subject was how to gain commercial success. Discussing this topic at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 22 January, chaired by designer Stuart Smith, were the managing director of Balcony Jump Management Tim Paton, Magnum Photos photographer Chien-Chi Chang, director of Panos […]
“Why did anybody go along with totalitarianism?” – Insight with Anne Applebaum
By Jim Treadway Free societies crumbled in the decade after World War II, when Stalin took much of Eastern and Central Europe, and in a single-minded fashion, dismantled the existing institutions to build totalitarianism. This period provides the subject for Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum’s latest book Iron Curtain, which she discussed with journalists and columnist for The Times, Oliver Kamm […]
McCullin: the still image that really does haunt you
By Lizzie Kendal On Friday 18 January the sound of spontaneous applause rang out from the upper room at the Frontline Club as the Bafta nominated documentary ‘McCullin’ came to an end. The room was packed despite the snow, and there was eager anticipation in the air for the Q&A with director Jacqui Morris and producer […]
Obama 2: The reluctant bully
By Nigel Wilson With the speechwriters putting the final touches to Barack Obama’s second inauguration address, a panel of experts assembled at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 16 January to assess the challenges and expectations facing the president.
Reflections with John Simpson: An escape from sub-editing
By Merryn Johnson As Vin Ray introduced BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson to an audience at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 15 January, he joked that the evening would be a cross between ‘This Is Your Life’ and ‘Desert Island Discs’.
The City’s Secrets
By Sally Ashley-Cound There was great interest in the screening of the film Secret City and the Q&A with Michael Chanan – professor of film and video at the University of Roehampton and The New Statesman’s first video blogger – which followed on Monday 14th January at the Frontline Club. Chanan’s film, along with fellow filmmaker and […]
Waking Italy Up: “Girlfriend in a Coma”
By Jim Treadway “This is a country that has grown less than Haiti over the last nine years,” Italian Director Analisa Piras lamented. Her documentary Girlfriend in a Coma, made with Bill Emmott, the former Editor-In-Chief of The Economist and author of the recently-published Good Italy, Bad Italy, screened to a sold-out audience at the […]