The Forum Blog
Here Be Dragons: the “post-traumatic world” of Albania
By Phoebe Hall On Monday 27 January a large audience gathered at the Frontline Club for a screening of Mark Cousins’ contemplative essay-film Here Be Dragons, followed by a Q&A with the director, via Skype, and with producer Don Boyd, founder of HiBROW.
The Dos and Don’ts of Data Journalism
by Sally Ashley-Cound “Don’t be seduced.” Michael Blastland ended the first panel at the Frontline Club on Thursday 23 January.
Is Traditional Media Actually Dying and Does it Matter?
by Sally Ashley-Cound “That four thousand word report from the Syrian refugee camp…will not be read as much as ‘10 cats that have got thoughts about Syria’,” New Statesman‘s Deputy Editor Helen Lewis said in her opening statement on the second panel of the Grapevine event at the Frontline Club on Thursday 23 January. Read […]
The Changing Face of News Gathering: Getting In On The Action
By Antonia Roupell Blackberry Messenger, Google Maps, YouTube and other less conventional information hubs were put under scrutiny on the 21 January at the Frontline Club. Richard Pendry, a journalist and lecturer at the University of Kent, chaired the fully booked discussion titled: The Changing Face of News Gathering. Well-versed in the art of unconventional […]
Oscar-nominated documentary about Egyptian revolution screens at the Frontline Club
By Helena Williams On the day the 2014 Academy Awards Nominations were announced, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of The Square. After winning the Audience Award at both Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival, the film is now in the run-up for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. The Square portrays the Egyptian revolution and […]
The “Ambiguous World” of the Organ Black Market
By Ratha Lehall On Monday 13 January, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of Tales from the Organ Trade followed by a Q&A session with director Ric Esther Bienstock. Bienstock introduced the film briefly, telling the audience it took three years to make, covers eight countries, and comprises five different languages. Tales from the Organ Trade presents the different […]
After Tiller: The Grey Area of Late-Term Abortions
By Antonia Roupell The nature of death, the right to justify it, and the value of human choice. There are few documentaries that deal with these weighty issues as uncompromisingly as After Tiller. The award winning film by co-directors Martha Shane and Lana Wilson revolves around the four remaining doctors in the US who are willing […]
What does the future hold for South Sudan?
By Alex Glynn The audience packed out the Frontline Club for the first event of the year on 8 January, a testament to the subject that has been dominating international headlines for the last few weeks – the crisis in South Sudan. A panel of experts from different fields, chaired by Channel 4 international editor Lindsey […]
Insight with Jineth Bedoya Lima “The bodies of women are weapons in all wars”
By Phoebe Hall On Wednesday 4 December the Frontline Club welcomed Jineth Bedoya Lima, a journalist with Colombian national newspaper El Tiempo and recipient of the 2012 International Women of Courage Award, to discuss her prolific journalistic career and work in combatting violence against women. The discussion, chaired by The Guardian’s Ed Vulliamy, largely focused on the “habitual, extensive, and systematic […]
“His insight was that his oppressors were afraid of him” – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom + Q&A
By Fred Heritage On Monday 25 November an audience gathered at the Frontline Club for a preview screening of the new biopic of Nelson Mandela, based on his autobiographical book, Long Walk to Freedom. The film, starring London born actor Idris Elba in the title role, intimately portrays the iconic figure throughout his life, against the […]
None to Blame but All to Suffer: The Carbon Crooks + Q&A
By George Symonds What do a dead poet, organised crime and the air we breathe have in common? On Thursday 21 November the Frontline Club screened The Carbon Crooks – director Tom Heinemann’s exposé of the massive fraud and failures within global carbon trading schemes. Heinemann introduced his picture thus: “This film is a about […]
Exploring new technology with drone journalism
By Greta Hofmann With the dangers of reporting and documenting conflict or uprisings claiming many lives every year, drones seem to be a practical and safe alternative to otherwise dangerous missions. On Wednesday 20 November, the Frontline Club hosted a panel discussion chaired by Richard Sambrook, professor of journalism at Cardiff University and a former BBC […]
The changing state of reporting on Syria
by Sally Ashley-Cound It is becoming more and more dangerous to report from inside Syria. At the Frontline Club on 19 November a panel chaired by Stuart Hughes, a senior world affairs producer with BBC News and in association with the Overseas Press Club, discussed how reporting has changed since the conflict began and how […]
Twenty Years of War Reporting: “A good moment for us is often the worst for them”
By Caroline Schmitt In October the Frontline Club held a tenth anniversary exhibition at the Prix Bayeux Awards and on 13 November they welcomed Prix Bayeux to London for an event to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. The event brought together past winners who each presented their distinguished pieces of reporting and looked back on 20 years of reporting conflict. The evening was […]
“Envy is the Central Fact of American Life“ – Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia + Director Q&A
By Greta Hoffman On 11 November, the Frontline Club hosted the screening of Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia. Finished less than a year after Vidal’s death, the film gave an intimate and in-depth insight into Vidal’s life and career as a writer and political commentator. The screening was followed by a lively Q&A […]
North Korea – life inside the secret state, the women who fight back and getting the outside world in
by Sally Ashley-Cound North Korea is the most totalitarian regime still in existence, yet knowledge of the outside world is slowly but relentlessly filtering in, in the form of USB sticks and wind-up radios. Channel 4’s Dispatches followed North Korean defector Mr Chung and Japanese journalist Jiro Ishimaru, who smuggle information and video footage in […]
Has the NSA spying gone too far and what damage has been done?
by Sally Ashley-Cound Following the latest revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Frontline Club’s First Wednesday panel on 6 November gathered to discuss Has NSA spying “reached too far”? Chair Owen Bennett-Jones, a freelance journalist and a host of Newshour on the BBC World Service started off by asking if anyone really knows how much […]
“To get justice you need truth” – No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka + Director Q&A
By Ratha Lehall On 5 November, No Fire Zone was shown at Riverside Studios as part of a series of Between the Lines follow up events hosted by Frontline Club and DocHouse. This documentary chronicles the last 138 days of the civil war in Sri Lanka, revealing the brutal tactics employed by the Sri Lankan army and government against the Tamil population. […]
The Sochi Project: Documenting the run up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in a city with no snow
by Sally Ashley-Cound In 2007, what would become the most expensive Olympic Games in history was announced. Sochi, on the banks of the Black Sea and known as the Florida of Russia – complete with palm trees and sandy beaches – would host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. The story caught the attention of filmmaker […]
The Bombing of al-Bara: The Camera That Captured It
By Antonia Roupell On 29 October, exactly one year and one day after the bombing of al-Bara in northern Syria, an audience gathered in the Ritzy Cinema to watch filmmaker Olly Lambert’s extraordinary footage of the attacks. The Bombing of al-Bara screening was hosted by the Frontline Club and DocHouse as part of a series of Between […]
The Engineer: “Cases worse than horror films”
By Caroline Schmitt On Monday 28 October, the Frontline Club screened The Engineer, a documentary uncovering the extent of gang violence in El Salvador directed by Mathew Charles and Juan Passarelli. The Q&A that followed was chaired by Stephen Jukes, Dean of the Media School at Bournemouth University. The Engineer portrays the work of Israel Ticas, […]
Filming the Unfilmable: Between The Lines Evening of Shorts
By Antonia Roupell Between the Lines Follow-Up Events once more succeeded in showcasing a diverse range of films at the Frontline Club on the 25th October. Each of the five documentaries opened a window onto a subject rarely documented from places like North Korea, Yemen and Iraq. Multimedia journalist, Adrian Branco and filmmakers Jason Lee and Tim Travers Hawkins were present […]
Russia Ten Years after Khodorkovsky
By Daniel Alan Kennedy On 23 October the Frontline Club held a panel discussion to mark the ten years since the arrest and imprisonment of Russia’s then-wealthiest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The discussion was chaired by Edward Lucas, international editor of The Economist and featured: Tonia Samsonova, a journalist from the radio station Ekho Moskvy; Ben Judah, author […]
Remembering Alexander Cockburn: His Past and Our Future
By Antonia Roupell On Wednesday 16 October animated anecdotes, socio-political retrospectives and media insights dominated the discussion about the fascinating life of talented journalist Alexander Cockburn. Chaired by journalist and broadcaster Charles Glass, the event at the Frontline Club hosted Cockburn’s brother and Middle East correspondent since 1979, Patrick Cockburn, as well as Ellin Stein, author of the […]
Granta 125 – After the War: “The story erupted around me”
By Caroline Schmitt The Frontline Club hosted an evening of reflections marking the publication of Granta 125: After the War on 17 October. Two correspondents shared their personal views on developments on the ground, after the battles are fought and the camera teams have moved on to cover other wars.
The Central Park Five + Directors Q&A: “How is it that we were so ready to believe they were guilty?”
by Ratha Lehall On Friday 18 October, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of the documentary The Central Park Five, in partnership with PBS America. The film focuses on five black and hispanic teenagers from Harlem, New York, who were imprisoned after falsely confessing to brutally raping and beating a young woman in Central Park in 1989. […]
Which Way is the Front Line From Here? A film and conversation about Tim Hetherington
By Alex Glynn “Why do young men go to war?” was asked again and again at the Between the Lines follow-up screening of Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington on Thursday 17 October at the Lexi Cinema. It was a question that occupied Hetherington during his lifetime and […]
The New Middle East: Why would you expect it to be easy?
By Caroline Schmitt During a conversation with BBC Arabic’s Samir Farah on 15 October, the BBC’s former Middle East Bureau Chief Paul Danahar gave the audience at the fully-booked Frontline Club a first-hand regional snapshot of the post-Arab Spring Middle East. One of the conclusions Danahar has drawn in his recent book The New Middle East: The […]
Pussy Riot: Punk Rock, Orthodox Christianity, and the Russian Courts
By Daniel Alan Kennedy Less than two weeks after Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova ended her hunger strike against the conditions in her Mordovian prison, on 14 October 2013, filmmakers Maxim Pozdorovkin and Mike Lerner held a Q&A following the screening of their documentary, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer. The film tracks the journeys of […]
Traitor Hero Comrade Spy: Philby – The Spy Who Went Into the Cold
By George Symonds “Good breeding and good manners are no guarantee of loyalty.” On Friday 11 October 2013, the Frontline Club screened Philby – The Spy Who Went Into the Cold. Kim Philby acted as a Soviet double-agent while serving as chief British intelligence officer in the United States, and while heading MI6’s anti-Soviet section. […]