When Steve Bannon left his position as White House chief strategist less than a week after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017, he was already a notorious figure in Trump’s inner circle, and for bringing a far-right ideology into the highest echelons of American politics. Unconstrained by an official post — though some say he still has a direct line to the White House — he became free to peddle influence as a perceived kingmaker, turning his controversial brand of nationalism into a global movement. The Brink follows Bannon through the 2018 mid-term elections in the United States, shedding light on his efforts to mobilize and unify far-right parties in order to win seats in the May 2019 European Parliamentary elections.

To maintain his power and influence, the former Goldman Sachs banker and media investor reinvents himself — as he has many times before — this time as the self-appointed leader of a global populist movement. Keen manipulator of the press and gifted self-promoter, Bannon continues to draw headlines and protests wherever he goes, feeding the powerful myth on which his survival relies.

Speakers

Alison Klayman 

New York Times chief film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis named Alison one of their ’20 Directors to Watch’ on a list of rising international filmmaking talents under 40. Her debut feature documentary, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry was shortlisted for an Academy Award, nominated for two Emmys, and earned Alison a Director’s Guild of America nomination. Alison has made many media appearances to speak about her documentary work, including on The Colbert Report. Alison’s other films include The 100 Years Show about 102-year-old Cuban- American painter Carmen Herrera, who worked in obscurity for decades until finally receiving recognition late in life. She has also served as an executive producer on several award-winning films, including the Oscar-shortlisted Hooligan Sparrow and the recent Sundance-winner On Her Shoulders.

When Deeyah Khan was six, her father took her to her first anti-racism rally.  A Pakistani immigrant to Norway, he promised her that things would get better and that the skinhead gangs that terrorised their family and families like them would soon find themselves relics of past prejudices, that bigotry belonged in history, that tomorrow would be a more tolerant time.

Three decades on, and we’re still waiting for tomorrow.

With a US president propagating anti-Muslim propaganda, the far-right gaining ground in German elections, hate crime rising in the UK, and divisive populist rhetoric infecting political and public discourse across western democracies, Deeyah Khan’s White Right: Meeting The Enemy asks why.

Following the lauded JIHAD – in which she spoke to radicalised British Muslims who had fought in the name of jihad on the battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Chechnya and now found themselves full of regret – Deeyah joins the frontline of the race wars in America. She sits face-to-face with fascists, racists and the proponents of the “alt-right” ideologies that have propelled Donald Trump to the presidency. From Breitbart’s darling, Richard Spencer to Jeff Schoep, leader of American’s largest neo-Nazi organisation, Deeyah’s need to find the deeper human causes of horrific social forces opens a different possibility for connection and solutions. Rather than dismiss these men as monsters, she’s determined to discover the men behind the masks.

Urgent and resonant, White Right is Deeyah Khan’s most personal film yet. Nominated for 2018 BAFTA Award in the Current Affairs category.

Run Time: 60 mins

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpWUZ3NG_Do

Deeyah Khan

Deeyah Khan is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning and two times BAFTA nominated documentary film director, and founder of Fuuse, a media and arts company that puts women, people from minorities, and third-culture kids at the heart of telling their own stories. In 2016, she became the first UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for artistic freedom and creativity. Born in Norway to immigrant parents of Pashtun and Punjabi ancestry, Deeyah’s experience of living between different cultures, both the beauty and the challenges, shapes her artistic vision. Her 2012 multi-award winning documentary Banaz: A Love Story chronicles the life and death of Banaz Mahmod, a young British Kurdish woman murdered by her family in a so-called honour killing. Deeyah’s second film, the Grierson and Bafta award-nominated Jihad, involved two years of interviews and filming with Islamic extremists, convicted terrorists and former jihadis. Deeyah released her third film in 2016, Islam’s Non-Believers which investigated the lives of ex-Muslims who face extreme discrimination, ostracism, psychological abuse and violence as a result of leaving Islam. One of Fuuse’s recent initiatives, born of Deeyah’s own experiences, is sister-hood, a digital magazine and a series of live events spotlighting the voices of women of Muslim heritage.

Catrin Nye

Catrin Nye is an investigative journalist, documentary maker and presenter for the BBC. She currently hosts the monthly national debate show The Hour on BBC One Wales as well as reporting for the BBC’s BAFTA award-winning Victoria Derbyshire programme, BBC Panorama, BBC World and Radio 4. Catrin previously spent many years reporting for Newsnight and BBC Asian Network developing a specialism in Britain’s minority communities, an area she continues to work on today. She has also written and reported for the Guardian, Prospect, BBC Radio 1, BBC World Service, 1Xtra, 5Live, BBC Breakfast and local radio across the UK. Catrin has won the Mind Journalist of the Year award, two Sandford Saint Martin awards for excellence in religious broadcasting and was one of the Radio Academy’s 30 Under 30. She has also been shortlisted for RTS Young Journalist of the Year and an Amnesty Award among others.

Using fringe social media platforms like 4chan, an anarchic and anonymous message board, and automated accounts on Twitter, they have been credited with rallying support for Donald Trump, spreading the story of French President Emmanuel Macron’s leaked emails ahead of this year’s French elections and some argue the rise of the AfD party in Germany.

But who is behind this movement, what do they want? Are they gaining an outsized influence on global politics? Join us for a panel discussion, analysing the varying impact the movement has had in the US and across Europe, as well as the increasing splinter groups straying from the umbrella of the Alt-Right, and the future of the movement.

Chair

Mike Wendling is a reporter, radio journalist and author of the forthcoming book “Alt-Right: From 4chan to the White House” (Pluto Press, April 2018). He works within the BBC’s Digital Current Affairs department, where he is a blogger and editor at the BBC’s experimental social news unit, BBC Trending. He’s produced and presented dozens of documentaries for Radio 4 and the World Service about US politics including the series America’s Own Extremists, and programmes about Native Americans and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Speakers

Megha Mohan is a presenter/reporter at the BBC’s social news unit BBC Trending. There, she has reported and field produced on subcultures on the internet across Africa, the US and Europe. This has included on the War on Drugs and online rise of President Duterte in the Philippines, livestreaming in China, meme culture in India, and the spread of propaganda and misinformation in Burundi. She has been part of award winning teams for the BBC World Service such as Newshour, World Have Your Say and World Update. She regularly appears on BBC News TV to discuss social media trends. Prior joining the BBC, she spent extensive time working for NGOs in the Great Lakes in Africa.

J. Lester Feder is a senior world correspondent with BuzzFeed News, now based in London focusing on nationalist movements. He has covered human rights issues around the world since joining BuzzFeed News in 2013. In 2015, he was named Journalist of the Year by theNational Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association in the United States for his reporting on fights over LGBT rights from places including the Vatican, Uganda, and the former Soviet Union. Before joining BuzzFeed News, Feder covered the Obama administration and Congress for Politico in Washington.

Dr Joe Mulhall is Senior Researcher at HOPE not hate. Formerly he was a visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London where he also he completed his PhD on the postwar far right. He held a Research Assistantship at Harvard University and obtained an MSc from the London School of Economics and a BA from the University of Liverpool. He has published extensively (both academically and journalistically) on the international far right and Islamism and discussed his research on the BBC, CNN and Channel 4 news and written for the Guardian and New Statesman among others. He recently co-authored HOPE not hate’s new report The International Alternative Right: From Charlottesville to the Whitehouse. He also sits on the board of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Patrik Hermansson is a researcher of far-right extremism at HOPE not Hate. He has a MSc from LSE and a degree in Political Science from Uppsala University in Sweden. He’s also a contributor to Swedish anti-far-right extremism magazine Expo and recently came out of a one-year infiltration of the international Alternative Right for HOPE not hate, which was featured in a New York Times exclusive and is being made into a documentary film, My Year In Kekistan.

HOPE not hate is a unique type of anti-fascist and anti-extremist organisation. For the past 14 years, they’ve been leading the fight against fascists and extremists internationally – using a potent blend of research, undercover operatives and public engagement to close down the space white supremacists and racists operate in.

Read HOPE not hate’s new report on the alt-right (and alt-light) The International Alternative Right: From Charlottesville to the Whitehouse? which involves Patrik’s undercover work.