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.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with In the Valley of Guns and Roses director Simon Hipkins.

Full lineup to be announced soon.

FAMOUS IN AHMEDABAD
Director: Hardik Mehta
2016 / 29 min / India

Set during the kaleidoscopic backdrop of the biggest kite-flying festival in India, this stunning film witnesses the transformation of an 11-year-old Zaid from a boy next door to an aggressive and a passionate kite-runner – until he comes across a challenge that threatens to keep him away from the one thing he loves.

IN THE VALLEY OF GUNS AND ROSES
Director: Simon Hipkins
2016 / 25 min / UK

In the heart of Bulgaria’s Rose Valley, single mother Irina is desperate to give her four-year-old daughter, Stefi, a better start in life. Her main source of income comes from her dangerous work at a weapons factory where she measures and packs gunpowder into artillery shells.

THE NEW CHE OF HAVANA
Director: Alex Mallis
2016 / 7 min / USA
AlexMallis.com

A Cuban skateboarder and artist must reconcile looming changes and a nascent free-market economy with his desire to continue operating his tattoo shop – currently illegal in Havana.

SHOOTING THE TRIBE
Director: Gemma Atkinson and Fred Grace
2013 / 8 min / Colombia, UK

In 1989, the Kogi tribe of Colombia opened their doors to a BBC documentary film crew. Their intention was to send us a warning that if we continued to live our lives the way we do, the destruction of the planet was assured. 25 years later, Shooting the Tribe takes us back into the jungle of the Sierra Nevada, to understand why it is they, not us, whose way of life has changed.

BACK
Directors: Jenna Belhumeur, Elena Boffetta
2015 / 13 min / United States

BACK focuses on the hidden aspects of long-term confinement through the eyes of Otis Johnson, who was incarcerated for over 40 years. The documentary explores what re-entry means for inmates who are released in a society that has drastically changed over several decades.

The film, produced over the course of four years, follows a convicted murderer, Uisdean, struggling to rebuild his life and his reputation in the remote Highland village where his family have lived for 200 years, and where he now cares for his father.

The project initially started as a short film, in which McLoughlan said she “very much let him tell his own story. I didn’t edit it very much.”

The purpose of the longer film was to be “a lot more sceptical, a lot more socially responsible,” and bring editorial balance to Uisdean’s explanation of his criminal past.

McLoughlan said that she “realised that [Uisdean’s] biggest battle would be staying out of prison, and that was probably where the story was going to be.” Her suspicion was right, and Uisdean’s battle to stay out of prison becomes the documentary’s defining narrative.

What makes Uisdean’s story fascinating is the internal conflict between his apparently violent history and his budding romantic relationship that is captured on camera.

Regarding the significance of the film’s stunning imagery of the Highland landscape, McLoughlan explained, “I knew that he was ridiculously romantic about the Highlands – the idea that it would in some way cleanse him.”

The film seeks to redress that “idealistic” image of the Highlands, and illustrate that it is also a landscape of conflict.

“Sometimes there is an issue of the Highlands being more a case of shortbread and [tweed] costume than substance.

“It is a Highland myth that it’s cleansing and pastoral in itself. I became fascinated by the image of a porcelain boy [in Uisdean’s father’s house] which looks incredibly cute, but when you look closely at him, you see he’s throttling a rabbit by the neck.”

The documentary’s soundtrack, which features a score of electronic Icelandic and Scottish-Norweigan folk music was also chosen to reflect that conflict, that “mixture of the beautiful and the ugly going on at the same time.”

The external conflict of his setting was an apt reflection of Uisdean’s own internal struggle. McLoughlan was interested in exploring “when [the landscape] is a healing thing for someone who’s been in a very tiny cell for sixteen years, and when it’s a torment, because there are no other distractions. There is just you, and your past, and your failure to reinvent yourself.”

From 7 – 21 March, the Frontline Club and the Scottish Documentary Institute are teaming up to present New Scottish Documentary, a series showcasing some of the the boldest and most innovative new works produced in Scotland.  Featuring one screening per week, we’ll be celebrating the richness of Scottish nonfiction filmmaking, including discussions with veteran documentary makers and up-and-coming directors to watch.  The programme includes Scotland on Screen, an evening of short films produced with assistance from the Scottish Documentary Institute and showcasing the diverse beauty of the Scottish landscape.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Lou McLoughlan.

This remarkable BAFTA nominated film from the new Scottish school of documentary filmmaking follows a convicted murderer over four years as he struggles to grapple with rebuilding his reputation in a remote Highland village while caring for his father. Though the film controversially gives the protagonist space to protest his innocence, an incredible four years of footage investigate his character – and the shattered hopes his pattern of recidivism leaves behind him.

16 Years Till Summer represents part of an exciting new wave of documentary filmmaking sweeping international festivals from Scotland; as such, it’s as bold in it’s subject matter as it is sceptical of finding ‘truth’ only in traditional forms of documentary film language. Prepare to have your preconceptions challenged.

Lou McLoughlan was one of BAFTA’s 2011 Brits to Watch, an initiative showcasing new British talent to the international industry. Her short, Caring For Calum, won two BAFTAs in the Scotland New Talent awards. 16 Years Till Summer is her newest feature. The film had its world premiere at Visions du Reel 2015, and was selected for Sheffield Doc/Fest‘s 2015 ‘Best of British’ documentary series.

Directed by: Lou McLoughlan
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 2015
Runtime: 80′

Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was captured by American forces in Afghanistan in 2002 and spent a decade imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, tells his own story in this documentary portrait from directors Patrick Reed and Michelle Shephard.

In prison Khadr struggled to endure the inhumane conditions and the demoralising improbability of release. In the outside world, public outcry mounted as the US and Canadian governments refused to take action. It took the relentless work of Dennis Edney, Khadr’s lawyer of over a decade, to advance the case. Finally repatriated to Canada in 2012, and released in May of this year, Khadr then faces the Harper government’s attempt to overturn his bail.

Featuring unprecedented access to former fellow inmates, family members, and government officials, Guantanamo’s Child acquaints us with an incredibly resilient young person who grew up in a tragic setting and analyses the political implications of his case.

Investigating a life that has sparked some of the most heated political debates in recent history, filmmakers Patrick Reed and Michelle Shephard reveal a young man who is cautiously ready for another chapter of his life. And for the first time, Omar Khadr himself tells us his side of the story.

Directed by: Michelle Shephard and Patrick Reed
Produced by: Peter Raymont, Michelle Shephard, Patrick Reed
Runtime: 80′
Country: Canada
White Pine Pictures

Discussion to be moderated by Richard Gizbert, presenter of Al Jazeera English’s The Listening Post, a weekly show that looks at news coverage by the world’s media. Gizbert has also spent 25 years working in the media world as a foreign correspondent, covering stories around the world.

Panelists:

Moazzam Begg is one of nine British citizens who were held at Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo Bay by the US government. He was released on January 25 2005 without charge. He is the director of outreach for advocacy group CAGE and author of Enemy Combatant. This year he was imprisoned by the British government on charges relating to Syria, his case was later dropped.

Michelle Shephard is an investigative reporter with the Toronto Star, author and filmmaker. With patrick Reed she co-directed Guantanamo’s Child, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015.  Shephard has been awarded the Michener Award for public service journalism and won Canada’s top newspaper prize, the National Newspaper Award, three times.  In 2011, she was an associate producer on the Oscar-nominated documentary Under Fire: Journalists in Combat.  She produced the National Film Board documentary, “Prisoners of the Absurd,” which premiered at Amsterdam’s film festival in 2014.  

Cori Crider heads the Abuses in Counter-Terrorism team at international NGO Reprieve. A U.S. lawyer, Cori has spent a decade investigating and litigating the most serious violations of the ‘war on terror’: Guantánamo, CIA rendition and torture, and civilian deaths from drone attacks in undeclared war zones.
She devised Reprieve’s challenge to abusive force-feeding at Guantánamo, which resulted in the first disclosure of videotapes of the process. She also developed Reprieve’s project investigating the drone war in Yemen: her team exposed key details of a drone strike on a wedding convoy, and brought a Yemeni man whose innocent relatives died in an attack to Washington, D.C. She represents two Libyan families whom U.S. and British intelligence ‘rendered’ to the dungeons of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Cori regularly gives print and broadcast interviews on counter-terror abuses and has written for the Guardian, CNN, al Jazeera, and the Huffington Post.

On Wednesday 7 October, former Al Jazeera English bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy joined a packed audience at the Frontline Club in his first public appearance since his release from a Cairo prison on 23 September. Fahmy was joined in conversation by his lawyer Amal Clooney and BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet.

Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian dual citizen, was arrested in December 2013 along with colleagues Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed, and sentenced to seven years in a maximum security prison on terrorism-related charges. He was finally pardoned by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on 23 September.

“I am a changed man and I am inspired by what’s happened to me – that’s why I’m fighting for other journalists,” Fahmy said of his newly-established Fahmy Foundation, which will support journalists across the world who have been unjustly imprisoned.

Critical in the past of the Canadian government’s failure to intervene strongly enough on his behalf, Fahmy repeated: “I do believe the Canadian government could have done more.”

He went on to emphasise that “governments should be much faster in intervening” when their citizens are held abroad. “Intervention needs to come immediately, from the highest levels of government.” Fahmy expressed his concern that this had not yet happened in the case of Iraqi VICE News journalist Mohamed Rasool, currently detained in Turkey on charges related to terrorism.

Denouncing Canada’s new Bill C-24, which allows the government to revoke a dual national’s Canadian citizenship if the citizen is convicted of terrorism, Fahmy said, “it’s a very dangerous law. It overrides the judiciary… it should be revisited.”

The discussion then moved onto the role of Al Jazeera, with reports of Fahmy suing his former employer for $100m on the basis of negligence in May 2015. “Al-Jazeera’s shortcomings and mistakes contributed to our situation,” he said. “I had specifically asked many times, are we legal in the Marriott [the Cairo hotel where Fahmy’s broadcast team was based]? They said, ‘Yes, stick to the editorial side, don’t worry about it’… but the answer – I found out in court.”

Fahmy continued, “I asked Al-Jazeera to take responsibility, to present a letter to the judge saying ‘[Greste, Fahmy and Mohamed] have nothing to do with this, this is our fault’, but they did not… it really angered me.”

“It was important to make it clear that there is a distinction between the network and the journalists who work in the network,” said Fahmy, describing the re-trial defence strategy.

Clooney took on Fahmy’s case, she said, when she “realised what was at stake, because Egypt is a leader in the region… It sets a precedent.”

Doucet praised her dedication to the cause: “We want to recognise all lawyers who fight for journalists, and we need more.”

Clooney continued: “Elements of the [Egyptian] government… sought to bring about justice. Belatedly, but they finally did do. The work that lawyers and journalists and human rights activists have to do is to make sure they’re pushing those elements of the government that are a force for good.”

Both Fahmy and Clooney praised the media’s essential role in the campaign for his freedom. “Social media was so important in this case,” Fahmy said, mentioning the #FreeAJStaff Twitter hashtag. “It does make a huge difference… This collective effort is why I’m here today.”

Optimism remains key to both Fahmy and his lawyer’s ongoing fight for press freedom. “There are signs of positive development in Egypt… but there’s a long way to go,” Fahmy said.

A new press charter to which he contributed will shortly be presented to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in the hope that journalists will consequently be able to work more freely in Egypt.

Clooney echoed this positive sentiment: “Hopefully this pardon means at the highest level there may be some change in approach.”

Clooney concluded the discussion with a few words on Fahmy‘s long-awaited freedom: “Today, we can take a moment to celebrate what’s happened to this journalist.”

“I’m here,” Fahmy replied, “because I have two very powerful women who are behind me,” thanking Clooney and his wife Marwa Omara.

Fahmy and his wife will shortly return to Canada, where he will take up a visiting post at the University of British Columbia and “continue to fight and use the spotlight” on behalf of the “many more behind bars” across the globe.

More information on the Fahmy Foundation – and their work in campaigning for the release of unlawfully imprisoned journalists, including Egyptian photojournalist Shawkan and Saudi blogger Raif Badawi – can be found here.

Amer, 45, met Raghda, 40, in a Syrian prison cell 15 years ago. Over a number of months they communicated through a tiny hole they had secretly made in the wall. They fell in love and, following their release, married and started a family together.

This film tells the poignant story of their family torn apart by the tyrannical Assad dictatorship. Filming began in Syria in 2009, prior to the wave of revolutions and ongoing changes in the Middle East. At the time, Raghda was a political prisoner and Amer was caring for their young children alone. McAllister filmed in the thriving heart of the Yarmouk Camp in Damascus – now an infamous news story as the Assad regime blocked all aid and food to its inhabitants.

This intimate family portrait probes to understand why people are literally dying for change in the Arab world. As Raghda is released from prison, filmmaker Sean McAllister himself is arrested for filming and the political pressure around all activists intensifies. The family flee to Lebanon, and then to France where they are given political asylum in the sleepy town of Albi, where they now watch the revolution from afar and wait for the fall of Assad.

However, in exile Raghda’s mental heath suffers. We see their new life in France develop, but the war is now between them. In finding the freedom they fought so hard for, their relationship is beginning to fall apart.

A Syrian Love Story won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Sheffield International Documentary Festival.

Directed by: Sean McAllister
Country: UK/France/Lebanon/Syria
Running time: 80′

October will mark the tenth year that Mikhail Khodorkovsky has spent behind bars. Once Russia’s richest and most successful businessman, he was arrested and imprisoned a decade ago, on charges that many regard as politically motivated. Since then he has faced new charges extending his sentence and although he is due for release in August 2014, doubts remain about whether this will take place.

We will be examining the Khodorkovsky case and, following the charges against Alexei Navalny, we will be looking at the wider issue of imprisonment of opposition figures in Russia. Will the ramping up of protests and support for Alexei Navalny force a change in the conduct of Russian politics?

A selection of Khodorkovsky’s writing will be adapted for an exclusive performance on the night, directed by Noah Birksted-Breen, the artistic director of the Sputnik Theatre Company. Birksted-Breen has previously directed a production of Elena Gremina’s play One Hour and Eighteen Minutes, dealing with the death of renowned Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. More information on Birksted-Breen and the Sputnik Theatre Company can be found here: sputniktheatre.co.uk. It will be performed by Jonathan McGuinness, who is currently appearing in The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas at the Royal Court Theatre.

Chaired by Edward Lucas, the international editor of The Economist and author of Deception: Spies, Lies and how Russia Dupes the West. He has covered Russia and Central and Eastern Europe for more than 20 years.

The panel:

Sir Tony Brenton is a former British Diplomat, he served as Ambassador to Russia from 2004-2008. In 2009 He became a Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge and is currently writing a book on Russian history.

Ben Judah reported for Reuters in Moscow before joining the European Council on Foreign Relations in London as a Russia analyst. He is currently a visiting fellow at the European Stability Initiative and is author of Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin.

Tonia Samsonova is a foreign correspondent working for Russian radio station Echo Moskvy, she is also a host on TVRain, an independent online TV channel. In 2013 she moved to London to investigate Russian corruption.

By Allan Williams

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega has until Monday to appeal against his extradition to Panama. The 77-year-old is currently serving a prison sentence in France after being convicted of money laundering in July 2010.

On Tuesday attention turns to Japan when the Parliament elects its sixth Prime Minister in five years. Incumbent Naoto Kan announced he was stepping down over plummeting approval ratings, following the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year.

Wednesday sees Canada release its second quarter GDP figures. Fears of the economy contracting grew following an announcement earlier this month that manufacturing sales declined 1.5per cent in June, to their lowest level since November 2010.

Also on Wednesday South African President Jacob Zuma makes a state visit to Norway at the invitation of King Harald V. The two-day trip includes a wreath-laying ceremony at the National Monument and a meeting with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

In the UK, on Thursday, repatriations of deceased British troops move from RAF Lyneham to RAF Brize Norton. RAF Lyneham and the parade through the nearby town of Wootton Bassett have made the headlines with the dignified way locals have mourned the fallen.

In Thailand that same day, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, editor of the liberal news website Prachatai, has her trial for lese majeste offences recommence. It is alleged that Premchaiporn failed to screen comments on her website that were critical of the Thai royal family, and if convicted faces up to 20 years in prison.

Attention turns stateside on Friday, when a US district court decides whether to order a retrial of former baseball star Roger Clemens, who was accused of lying to Congress in 2008 when he denied using anabolic steroids. The original trial was declared a mistrial on 14 July.

In London on Saturday the far-right English Defence League are expected to demonstrate in the borough of Tower Hamlets, against what it sees as militant Islam. The march is expected to be banned by the Home Secretary, but the action group Unite Against Fascism has arranged a counter-protest against the EDL.

On Sunday the UN Special Representative on Somalia Augustine Mahiga convenes a conference in the east African nation to provide clear timelines and benchmarks for the Transitional Federal Institutions.

And in Germany there’s a test for Chancellor Merkel’s coalition when state elections take place in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, with local elections coming under increasing scrutiny as a gauge of popularity for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.