In a Kenyan town bordering wildlife conservation land, two men try to hold onto their increasingly fragile status quo. A small-time ivory dealer fights to stay on top while forces mobilise to destroy his trade. When he turns to his younger cousin, a conflicted wildlife ranger who hasn’t been paid in months, they both see a possible lifeline.

The plummeting elephant population in Africa has captured the attention of the world. And as the government cracks down, the poachers face their own existential crisis. For them, conservationists are not only winning their campaign to value elephant life over its ivory, but over human life as well. Who are these hunters who will risk death, arrest and the moral outrage of the world to provide for their families?

Director Jon Kasbe followed the film’s subjects over a three-year period, gaining an extraordinary level of access and trust as he became part of their everyday lives. The result is a rare and visually arresting look through the perspectives and motives of the people at the epicentre of the conservation divide.

Run Time: 79 mins

Director and Producer: Jon Kasbe

Chair

Nick Clark is a broadcast journalist and writer specialising in environmental coverage. His latest work features an acclaimed documentary for Al Jazeera English on the remote Weddell Sea in Antarctica called ‘Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary’. In 2014 Nick completed a prestigious Fellowship at MIT and Harvard studying the impacts of climate change on terrestrial and marine eco-systems. Nick’s reported on the disappearance of the world’s tropical glaciers in the Andes and the devastation caused by illegal logging in Amazonia. He’s also focused on issues as diverse as efforts to save the Siberian Tiger in the forests of the Russian Far East, the shark fin trade from Hong Kong to the Middle East, the conflict between wolf and man in remote parts of Finland and the plight of gorillas in Uganda. Nick has travelled to the Arctic regions several times – most recently in August this year, to report for Al Jazeera English on the threat of a collapsing iceberg looming over an isolated village in northern Greenland. Nick’s won a Royal Television Society award for directing  & presenting a six part series on the River Thames. He’s also reported general news, taking in stints in Afghanistan, Libya – as Gadaffi’s regime fell – as well as many African assignments.

Speakers

Born to an Australian mother and an Indian father, Jon Kasbe spent most of his childhood traveling extensively. Growing up in this environment instilled in him a deep curiosity and desire to explore the world. He soon found documentary filmmaking to be a way to immerse himself in his travels and share discoveries with others. At age 10, he bought his first camera in order to interview children in war-torn Serbia, where his parents were volunteering. Now, at 27, his short films have screened around the world, garnering an Emmy Award, two Emmy nominations, and recognition from the Webbys, SXSW, Hot Docs, Vimeo Staff Picks, and The White House News Photographers Association. WHEN LAMBS BECOME LIONS, which he filmed, directed and produced, is his feature-length film debut.

Kaddu Sebunya is president of the African Wildlife Foundation. He began his career serving as a project manager with WaterAid and as a relief program officer with Oxfam UK. Beginning with his post as the Associate Director for the United States Peace Corps in Uganda, Sebunya’s career began to focus more on conservation. He later served as a country program coordinator with the World Conservation Union—now the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN—and as a senior policy and planning advisor for Conservation International.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/265807834

Callum Macrae  is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and journalist. An Emmy, BAFTA and Grierson nominee, he has been making films for 20 years in the UK and around the world.. For six years he was an on-screen reporter on Channel 4 Dispatches before becoming a director. Films he reported included the award-winning documentary Secrets of the Gaul, which first revealed the whereabouts of the missing trawler Gaul lost with 38 men on board amid accusations that it had been used for spying. His films include three major investigations into allegations of coalition crimes in Iraq. He has made many films for the BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Al Jazeera English and PBS. His first television documentary on Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, won the Current Affairs – International category of the Royal Television Society’s Television Journalism Awards 2010–11, won two One World Media Awards and earned a BAFTA TV Award nomination.  His last feature documentary, No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka,  has won several awards, including The Audience Awards at the Nuremberg Film Festival and Watch Docs in Poland, as well as the Human Rights award at the Festival des Liberties in Brussels. From this work, he and his team were also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012

Peter Taylor OBE is a British journalist and documentary-maker. He is best known for his coverage of the political and armed conflict in Northern Ireland and for his investigation of Al Qaeda and Islamist extremism in the wake of 9/11. He also covers the issue of smoking and health and the politics of tobacco for which he was awarded the WHO Gold Medal for Services to Public Health. He has written books and researched, written and presented television documentaries over a period of more than forty years. In 2014, Taylor was awarded both a Royal Television Society lifetime achievement award and a BAFTA special award. Taylor has written eight books on political violence, his latest being Talking to Terrorists. A Personal Journey from the IRA to Al Qaeda. Others include Beating the Terrorists? Interrogation in Omagh, Gough and Castlereagh, and his Northern Ireland trilogy on the Troubles called, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Féin, Loyalists, and Brits: The War against the IRA. Each book deals with the Northern Irish conflict from the perspective of one of the three main parties involved: the Provisional IRA; the various Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups; and the British government and security forces. In 2000, he presented the three part BBC2 series Brits on the covert war in Northern Ireland including interviews of former members of 14 Intelligence Company, the RUC Headquarters Mobile Support Unit and MI6. In 2007, he wrote and presented the BBC four-part series, Age of Terror. In April 2012, he was presenter and reporter for the BBC2 two-part series Modern Spies, in which he interviewed serving members of MI5, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ (anonymously).

Taking four years to complete (including the harrowing war in Gaza in 2014), Gaza Surf Club shows an incredibly engaging and enlightening story of a group of people whose similarities with our ‘human condition’ bring out the wrangling contrasts of our differences.

Director Philip Gnadt and Producer and Co-Director Mickey Yamine will be present post-screening for a Q&A with the audience.

Run Time: 87 mins

Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/185917266

Antony Butts and Orysia Lutsevych

As part of the Documenting Ukraine festival held on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 May in partnership with Open City Docs and GRAD, the Frontline Club screened the UK premiere of Anthony Butts’ work in progress: The Curious Tale of a Handmade Country.

With astonishing access, Butts followed and filmed Ukrainian rebels in the east of the country as they attempted to establish the Donetsk People’s Republic.

After the screening, Butts was joined by journalists Nataliya Gumenyuk and Oliver Carroll and Chatham House fellow Orysia Lutsevych for an in-depth discussion. The conversation touched upon economic grievances, propaganda and the escalation of the conflict.The first question from an audience member was on how Butts succeeded in gaining such impressive and unfettered access to a world that was reluctant to welcome journalists, and feared misrepresentation by the media.

“First off, I said that I was making a big documentary about the creation of the country, so that kind of appealed to people’s egos,” said Butts, adding that being a documentary filmmaker awarded him a more privileged identity than that of a reporter.

He built trust with the key figures in his documentary by finding common ground.

“I was actually sort of saying, ‘I’m kind of with you on this class war thing’,” Butts said. “‘I’m fed up of oligarchs as well taking over London’… so I was able to speak about what we had in common.”

The film provided a snapshot of a unique period of time. Carroll, who was talking to the Frontline Club audience via Skype from Donetsk, remembered the conflicting atmospheres.

“[Watching the film] brought a lot of memories back from that very strange time in the city,” he said. “Despite, as you saw in the film, the immense violence and tension that was happening there, there was also a sort of weird carnival element to it all.”

The rebels had a high level of support in the region, Carroll explained.

“A lot of people genuinely support the idea of this Luhansk, Donetsk People’s Republic, and in a sort of anti-Kiev, self-identity, self-fulfilment type of way. And I think that’s increasing,” he said.

Those who did not feel pulled by the prospects of self-determination, Carroll said, were pushed “for right or wrong” by the belief that Ukraine was shelling their cities.

“The understanding is that it’s the Ukrainians firing, and in understanding that they’re firing on us, well you know, we can’t be part of this Ukrainian system anymore.”

2nd Day of films @frontlineclub started with an impressive one about ‘DNR’. @Orysiaua @ngumenyuk at postshow talk now pic.twitter.com/j3psGRQc0N

— Ukrainian London (@UkrainianLondon) May 17, 2015

The Euromaidan protests held similar goals to those initial aims of the Donetsk People’s Republic. “The same economic problems were in Odesssa, in Western Ukraine, in many other regions which hadn’t been heard by the government in 25 years,” said Gumenyuk.

However, the region was already relatively politically disenfranchised in Kiev before the events in Euromaidan and, as Carroll explained, Russia seized the opportunity to exploit this existing divide.

“Kiev played its hand very badly,” he said. “It needed to be a lot more unpredictable than it was. But at the same time it was falling into traps, but the traps were being placed there for it.”

“I have actually great sympathy to the people portrayed in this movie,” said Gumenyuk. “They were speaking against the oligarchs, while we definitely knew that, for instance, these same rallies were funded by the same oligarchs.”

The film also commented on the influence of Russian state television on the protests, yet Lutsevych told the audience of other ways that propaganda made its way across the border.

On one visit to Ukraine, her translator told Lutsevych that Russian DJs touring Eastern Ukraine were warning their audiences of threats of fascism from Kiev. “They’re coming with their popular concerts and trying to say these kinds of things to people,” she said.

Lutsevych spoke out about the “dangerous” way in which Russia was “manipulating millions of people” into the current conflict, citing evidence that the Kremlin had plans to stoke a rebellion even before Euromaidan started.

“Yes, Russia is being a baddie,” said Butts. “[But] from their point of view they’ve good geopolitical reasons to do so… it’s like the Monroe Doctrine for the Americans, it’s just the way [they believe] the world works. The question is how do we combat it?”

“There was a moment when the [rebel’s revolution] would have burnt itself out… I think that that war could have been prevented because Russia, as I said, is using every trick in its book. But it takes two to tango. The people [in Donetsk] were reacting to something.”

“If Ukrainian TV hadn’t demonised [the rebels],” said Butts, “… if they had laid off them a bit and sort of said, ‘we hear you guys, ok? You’re protesting in your strange way, we’re with you’… There would have been less anger on the ground.”

However, other members of the panel put the cause of conflict squarely down to Russian intervention in the country.

“In the movie, ethnic issues didn’t come up a single time,” said Lutsevych, “which was quite interesting. They didn’t say, ‘they will come here and make us speak Ukrainian and they will kill all our Soviet heroes’… it was more ideological.”

Importantly for Lutsevych, there was no existing internal conflict or civil war within Ukraine before Russia began to intervene. “I think this is even more scary when you think how easily you can create these artificial divisions,” she said.

—————————————————————————————————————————–

By Josie Le Blond 

On Saturday 16 May, the Frontline Club held a special screening of shorts and clips reflecting on the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine as part of the two-day Documenting Ukraine festival.

The short films – extracts from the longer work Euromaidan. Rough Cut – trace the efforts of a group of Ukrainian filmmakers who documenting several months of civil unrest, beginning in Autumn 2013 and culminating in the resignation of President Yanukovych in February 2014.

The resulting clips form a mosaic of images and moments which, put together, allow a powerful insight into life on the Maidan barricades.

The screening began with the short film Lenin’s Teeth, in which activists tear down a statue of Lenin during Maidan protests in Kiev in December 2013.

Then followed filmmaker Roman Bondarchuk‘s short Search for a Leader, showing discussions between activists as they attempt to self-organise which trapped in a police cordon on a bitterly cold winter’s night.

All Things Ablaze followed, which documents the violent struggles between police and activists in the weeks preceding Yanukovych’s resignation, in which flames, gunshots, molotov cocktails and bloodshed are regular features.

The following discussion with filmmakers and academics touched upon the challenges faced by the filmmakers, as well as their motivations in documenting the Maidan protests.

Filmmaker Roman Bondarchuk presented his reasoning: “For me, the biggest challenge was to film or to throw stones. I realised that filming was more useful.”

The evening will include short stories capturing the essence of big issues, films showing life in other parts of the world under difficult or extraordinary circumstances, and stories focusing on remarkable individuals.

The total runtime of the evening is 93 minutes.

January 2015 selection:

• 

  Chappin’

  Liam McLaughlan is a 17-year-old schoolboy from Glasgow’s Easterhouse Estate.  A passionate voice within the Scottish Radical Independence Campaign, he engaged with activists and seasoned politicians to push for support to his neglected community. Liam’s political campaigning is deeply personal, and Igor Slepov’s portrayal of a young man’s determination to aid his Glasgow neighbourhood offers a reflection on the individual stories that comprised Scotland’s independence debate.

  Directed by Igor Slepov | Duration: 10′ | Year: 2014
  http://www.scottishdocinstitute.com/tag/igor-slepov/

• 

  Central Station Sofia

  Alberto Iordanov introduces us to the surreal world of Central Station Sofia. It is a mosaic film that combines fragments from the lives of those who are a part of the biggest railway station in the Balkans. Central Station Sofia was built during the peak of socialism and it has been the symbol of the opening of Bulgaria to the world, yet its abandoned air reflects the current economic instability in the country.

  Directed by Alberto Iordanov | Duration: 14′ | Year: 2013
  http://cargocollective.com/albertoiordanov

• 

  Syria’s Second Front

  From PBS and Clover Films: FRONTLINE makes a dangerous trip to the battlefields of Syria, gaining exclusive access to rebel forces as they try to unify against extremist Islamic factions that have thwarted the fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. With international peace efforts foundering and Western news organisations unable to safely report inside the country, journalist Muhammad Ali crosses into Syria to travel with moderate rebel commanders and fighters as they launch what they are calling “The Second Revolution,” this time against jihadis from the Al Qaeda-linked group known as ISIS.

  Directed by Muhammad Ali | Duration: 22′ | Year: 2014
  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/syrias-second-front/

• 

  Godka Cirka (A Hole in the Sky)

  A Hole in the Sky that takes place in Beerato, a wind-swept village in Somaliland, an unrecognised self-declared de facto sovereign state, recognized as an autonomous region of Somalia. Alex Lora’s film focuses on three generations of female shepherdesses; the struggles of their daily lives as they deal with analphabetism, shortage of water, and their attempt to end to the ancient practice of Female Genital Cutting.

  Directed by Alex Lora | Duration: 10′ | Year: 2012
  http://www.aholeinthesky.org/

• 

  The Orchard Keepers

  Against the backdrop of political upheaval, islands of green float in the rugged Sinai desert; two Bedouin embark on a daily journey to keep their orchards alive.  During a time of volatility, filmmaker Bryony Dunne discovers the orchards and the timeless stability they offer.  

  Directed by Bryony Dunne | Duration: 28′ | Year: 2014
  www.theorchardkeepers.com

“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.”

Janet Malcom, The Journalist and the Murderer

Hosting a debate on the role of fiction/nonfiction in documentary storytelling, David Wilson, founder of True/False film festival, chaired a panel of past True/False filmmakers Kevin Macdonald, Sarah Gavron and Beadie Finzi. He began by asking them all what it was that guided their decision making process that ultimately skirted the line between fictional representation and factual accuracy.

“When you find yourself in a position where you are investigating how to shape a story, how to shape a narrative, how do you determine whether you are going too far or you have not gone far enough . . . that this is right and this is wrong?”

Photo by Dogwoof

Finzi, co-founder of BRITDOC, claimed this was a question of the internal moral code of a filmmaker.

“This is a grey area, a spectrum. Whenever you make a film you’re making a representation of somebody, crafting an impression of them and there is license in that. We all recognise when you are guiding the story for effect by manipulating the characters or enhancing them in a way which crosses a line.”

Filmmaker Macdonald disagreed that this is a line that is clearly defined and recognised by both filmmaker and audience/reader alike, and that the relationship between filmmaker and protagonist remains complicit.

“By selecting and counterpointing elements in any story you are changing what they are. In the end it comes back to what you yourself are comfortable with.”

Referencing Janet Malcom’s opening line from The Journalist and the Murderer, Macdonald acknowledged that you are ultimately using people’s lives and their personal narratives to make your film and therefore “it is, in effect, all indefensible”.

It is Malcom’s understanding of the ‘relativity of truth’ to which Macdonald alluded when speaking of evidence as part of an argument and the importance that chance and surprise play in the construct of this narrative.

For Finzi, this makes building a film “like surfing the wave . . . you have to adapt”. But these are adaptations that affect the narrative arc and, in turn, the consequence of the story.

“There was no greater example of this bombshell than Citizenfour. Laura [Poitras] had already finished a film about the surveillance state when Edward [Snowden] emailed,” starting a process by which an entirely new film would be found and made.

In the case of Citizenfour, this organic process emerged precisely because Snowden realised that Laura Poitras was the filmmaker who really “understood the issue, who was deeply invested in it, who was authentic and serious and who he, ultimately, felt safe reaching out to”.

Questioned on whether this demand for ‘absolute truth’ represented a gold standard or holy grail and justified or explained the methods utilised in documentary films, Wilson replied that “for me and most filmmakers the closest word is actually honesty – which is a little more gut sense – when we are being honest to our subjects, when we are being honest about our understanding”.

“I certainly don’t know any documentary filmmaker who thinks there is an absolute truth that they are going to present to the world but maybe it’s more a case of truths – plural.”

However, for Wilson, transcending and challenging this line remains problematic.

“When you take a glass of water and mix in a single drop of ink you have changed it entirely. It’s no longer clear and the whole thing has now become murky. As filmmakers you find that it’s not ink at all – it does not dissolve like that – that’s not the right metaphor for thinking about how people include elements of fiction in their work.”

Positioning documentary in relation to journalism, Macdonald suggested a story, “whether it’s in a newspaper, on television or in a cinema, is a construct which is by its very nature selective”, bound by the need to have a beginning middle and end, “which creates some sort of order out of chaos is”.

“That’s how the human brain works, that’s how we understand things. We make life bearable by telling stories in every moment of our lives and so documentary (and to an extent journalism) becomes an extension of that.”

While all acknowledged the cross-over between journalism and documentary, none of the panel chose to define themselves as journalists. However, they did recognise the profession as a broad church encompassing artists, filmmakers and journalists; depending on which affected how you viewed the issue of the truth, “according to who you are and how you see yourself”.

With this shift towards interdisciplinary practice, Finzi suggested that the audience had become more demanding and critical of how stories presented as ‘true’ were represented.

“With audiences now, there is an awareness when they are being lied to.”

For Wilson this comes back to the fundamentals of intermedia literacy.

“Audiences are going to bring their own tools to view the film and the sophistication of those tools is what is going to help them figure out their way as a reader. So from the nightly news to the furthest fiction – the truth can be viewed more as a playing field where it is as important to know where a film started from as where it ended.”

It was such an inspiring meditation on dox thanx @frontlineclub @davidkinofist @finzibeadie @SarahGavron K. Macdonald pic.twitter.com/mVJKi67UpR

— başak ç. (@_ARTvoltage_) November 18, 2014