Among the many instances of imaginative defiance explored, Crawshaw discovers the surprising impact of Lego figures in Siberia, red-hatted dwarves in Poland and a donkey holding a press conference in Azerbaijan – not to mention the story of how Darth Vader helped to effect a global arms treaty.

But how effective are humour and creativity in bringing about social change?

Discussion chaired by Channel 4 News Correspondent Fatima Manji.

Steve Crawshaw is a senior advocacy adviser at Amnesty International.  He was previously London director and UN advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. He joined The Independent at launch and reported on the east European revolutions,  the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Balkan wars. Interviewees ranged from Slobodan Milosevic to Aung San Suu Kyi. His previous books include Small Acts of Resistance (co-authored with John Jackson, 2010, foreword by Vaclav Havel), Easier Fatherland: Germany and the Twenty-First Century (2004) and Goodbye to the USSR (1992).

Fatima Manji is a News Correspondent and regularly reports on a range of national and international stories. Her broadcasting has included telling the story of the migration crisis from the borders of Europe, interviewing victims of ISIS atrocities in Iraq and challenging politicians here in the UK during the referendum campaign. She also occasionally presents the programme from the studio. Fatima has won a number of awards for her journalism and in 2015 she was a finalist for the Royal Television Society’s Young Journalist of the Year. During the last General Election she presented Britain’s first ever Alternative Election Debate featuring young party leaders facing a live audience on Channel 4. Fatima joined Channel 4 News in 2012 and previously worked as a reporter and video journalist at the BBC.

Syrian radio host Obaidah Zytoon and her friends are caught up in the euphoria of the 2011 Arab Spring. Cameras in hand, these artists and activists take to the streets to protest Bashar al-Assad. But as they film over the next several years, their hopes for a better future are tested by violence, imprisonment and death.

Working with acclaimed Danish director Andreas Dalsgaard, the film’s protagonists narrate and edit years of footage into a deeply moving personal narrative. Rather than dwelling on the violence of the conflict, The War Show focuses on what the revolution meant to individual people. Zytoon and her friends share similar aspirations to young people all over the world: to live free of repression.

Yet their dreams of revolution turn into the reality of civil war. Zytoon takes road trips to the centre of rebellion in Homs, to her hometown Zabadani near Lebanon, and to the north of Syria. Through poignant first-person narration, The War Show awakens audiences to understand how the conflict in Syria has impacted everyday people.

Host:

Razia Iqbal has worked for BBC news for more than 25 years. She presents Newshour on the BBC World Service and the World Tonight on Radio 4. She was the arts correspondent for a decade, and has worked as a reporter on both television and radio.

Directed by: Andreas Daslgaard, Obaidah Zytoon
Produced by: Miriam Nørgaard, Alaa Hassan
Country: Denmark
Year: 2016
Runtime: 100 mins

In December of 2010, Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire protest of government corruption and poor living conditions. This act was a catalyst for the Arab Spring. Tunisians who had never known democracy were then left with the question of what democracy in their country could mean. A Revolution in Four Seasons seeks to answer that question from the perspective of two young women who persevere to change their country.

This compelling documentary follows journalist Emna Ben Jemaa and Constituent Assembly member Jawhara Ettis over the course of Tunisia’s critical first four years after the Revolution. Emna is a secular journalist fighting to keep religion out of government, while Jawhara works within Parliament to help gently guide the nation towards more Islamic principles. Both women exhibit remarkable determination, wisdom, and resilience in their efforts to steer the country towards disparate versions of the perfect democracy.

Through its central characters, the film embarks on an exploration of what it means to be a modern Islamic woman – balancing work, family, and politics in the context of a budding democracy. Over the four years following Tunisia’s revolution Jawhara and Emna must make difficult compromises as ambitious participants in this fragile new climate. Paralleling this is Tunisia’s development as it is threatened by economic strain, political assassinations, acts of terrorism, and protests which ultimately force Jawhara’s government to step down.

Directed by: Jessie Deeter
Country: United States
Year: 2015
Runtime: 90 mins

It is half a decade since Egypt’s revolution first erupted, promising something more than a binary choice between Islamism and military authoritarianism. Yet since the unrest began we have seen the Muslim Brotherhood rise to power, only to be overthrown by an army strongman – but is this just the start?

What has become of the big ideas at the root of the uprising – about democracy, sovereignty, social justice and resistance? How can a country so divided between two irreconcilable political orders continue its revolution? Join us to discuss where the Arab World’s most populous nation stands today, as well as its possibilities for the future.

Chaired by Rasha Qandeel, BBC Arabic journalist and presenter on NewsNight and HARDtalk. She joined the BBC in 2003 and since 2011 has covered the Arab uprisings, with a focus on events in Egypt.

The panel:

Jack Shenker is a journalist based in London and Cairo, whose reporting has spanned the globe. He is the former Egypt correspondent for the Guardian and author of The Egyptians – A Radical Story.

Dr Omar Ashour is a senior lecturer in Security Studies in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. He is an associate fellow at Chatham House and was involved in the process of security sector reform in Egypt and Libya between 2011 and 2013.

Sherif Azer is an Egyptian human rights defender and an expert in online activism in Egypt. He has worked in the field of human rights for eleven years – for organisations including Front Line Defenders and the International Network for Freedom of Expression (IFEX) – and is currently the assistant secretary general for the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights.

Hossam Abdalla is a leading fertility specialist, heading Britain’s largest fertility clinic. He is also a political activist and was one of leaders of the student movements in the seventies. He is a supporter of the 25th January revolution in Egypt and has been a contributor to many programs debating the revolution.

L-R: Sean McAllister, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Amer Daoud

The plight of Syrians has returned to the headlines following the recent release of a tragic image of young Aylan Kurdi lying dead in the sand. It is easy to forget that the current situation in Syria, and the millions of refugees who have been forced to flee the country, has its roots in the Syrian Revolution of 2011 and the brutal response of the Assad regime.

In his latest film, A Syrian Love Story, Sean McAllister follows the story of one family torn apart by the political imprisonment of a mother, as they experience the civil war and finally find refuge in Paris.

On Wednesday 23 September, McAllister, alongside the film’s protagonist Amer Daoud and journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, joined an audience at the Frontline Club for a Q&A following the screening.

Throughout the film, McAllister‘s close relationship to Daoud, his wife Raghda and their children is evident. “[McAllister became] part of the story in a way, which is quite a dangerous thing for a journalist,” said Alibhai-Brown. “We’re all trained: you must be distant, you just be objective, you must be balanced. All rubbish really.”

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

McAllister, who has shot many films in the Middle East, told the Frontline Club that he felt guilty for only visiting countries when they were at war. “I’ve made films in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and after… I always remember them talking about the golden days, before war,” he said. When he heard someone say that Damascus in Syria was like Iraq in the golden days he thought he’d go and see for himself.

Before the Arab Spring uprising and the subsequent civil war, McAllister travelled to Syria to find a story. “I kind of fell in love with this place… there was fun with fear in those days and I was hanging out there for maybe, on and off in this insane way that we do making documentaries, about eight months,” he said.

In the film, McAllister says he met Daoud in a bar in Damascus, a serendipitous encounter that Alibhai-Brown seemed initially reluctant to believe.

“Yeah, I saw this man, he asked everybody in the street: ‘What do you think about freedom? Is Syria free? And what do you think about this president Bashar al-Assad, why is his picture everywhere?’” Daoud said of McAllister. “He’s crazy to ask these questions.”

Daoud told the Frontline Club audience that he was worried at first when McAllister began to ask him these dangerous questions. “That’s why it took five years to make [the film],” said McAllister. “It took me two years to get [Daoud’s] trust and then his wife came out of prison and she didn’t trust me for another two years.”

Although the film focuses very centrally on Daoud and Raghda’s relationship, McAllister said that this was not the focus from the outset. In fact, McAllister’s initial failure to secure a commission for the film had a significant impact on its direction.

“It wasn’t that I was planning it, it wasn’t a master plan, I just couldn’t get it commissioned,” he said. “If it had been commissioned earlier it would have been an Arab Spring film that would have been largely around the topical events of the time.”

When Daoud and his family left Syria, McAllister said he was initially worried that the film would lose momentum. “But actually,” he said, “what started to happen between them for me as a filmmaker was much more interesting in France. And it was this fragmentation… this disillusionment and disconnection to this whole place.”

McAllister also said that once Daoud had moved to France, he became a lot more involved in their relationship. “My role became even more connected. They would call one week, [Daoud] would call me up and say: ‘You’ve got to come now, tomorrow, we don’t know what the fuck’s going on. You’re the only person that’s been with us on all of this, you can make sense. And the next week [Raghda] would be calling me up saying, ‘Sean, come now’.

“Because although these people that have gone through so much talk to so many interesting people that want to help, they’re looking in the eyes of people that really don’t know what they’ve been through. And I think that’s the disassociation, the disconnection we have with this tragedy in Europe now.”

Amer Daoud

Daoud explained why many refugees were so desperate to come to Europe. His experience of being a refugee in Lebanon, he told the Frontline Club, was one of purgatory. “You cannot imagine how you live without papers, without food, without anybody to take care of you. What are you? Nothing. You are waiting for just one thing: death. All the refugees are the same. They have a hope to come to Europe,” he said.

L-R: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Sean McAllister and Amer Daoud

A Syrian Love Story has started to gain more traction than McAllister is used to. He admitted that despite his best efforts, most of his work finds a niche audience. “My target audience is three mates back in Hull that don’t give a monkeys about wherever I go… and try to get them into that space” he said. “Usually that doesn’t matter and it still goes out to 265 people on BBC Four.” However, on this occasion current events have pushed the film out to more people.

“You deliver a good film and there’s unfortunately a dead body of a boy swept up on a beach,” said McAllister referring to the photo of Alyan Kurdi published earlier this month. Due to the urgency these photos have given to the refugee story, A Syrian Love Story will be broadcast in a prime BBC One slot.

“It’s not easy for eight million Syrian refugees, it’s not easy. But I think we can find a way to press our governments somehow, in Europe, to organise travel between Europe and the places of refugees,” said Daoud.

However, as McAllister said, it is much harder to support refugees in their emotional upheaval. “We went to some of the camps in Bulgaria and places on the border and it was just horrendous. I mean it was so bad that the refugees there, having been beaten up by the Bulgarian police, were trying to get back to Syria,” said McAllister.

He did not blame Bulgaria, but said there needed to be a more concerted effort.

“What we don’t really realise is how many people live like [Daoud],” said McAllister. “I think he moved houses about 16 times in the making of this film and there were times I knew he didn’t have anything, that they’d not eaten for days. And that’s not unusual for a lot of people in his situation.”

A member of the Frontline audience asked Daoud how, after leaving everything behind in Syria, he supports himself and his family. “How do I support myself?” he said, “I train my face to smile everyday.”

Sean McAllister (left) and Amer Daoud

Visit the A Syrian Love Story website for more information on the film and upcoming screenings.

From 29-31 October, the Frontline Club is hosting screenings as part of the Green Caravan Film Festival, a travelling festival of environmental and socially conscious films. The full lineup can be found here.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Anna Roussillon via Skype.

January 2011 in Egypt was marked by anti-government demonstrations. While tens of thousands of protestors gathered in Cairo, poor villagers in the country’s south followed the tense situation in Tahrir Square on their TV screens and in the daily newspapers. It is from their perspective that this documentary captures the political changes in Egypt, from the toppling of President Mubarak to the election of Mohamed Morsi. I Am the People reveals the villagers’ hopes and disappointments and shows that, despite the wild events, very little has actually changed in their lives.

The film presents a charming, funny and fascinating portrait of one family in Egypt’s rural South, as they follow the Tahrir uprising, charting their progression from amused distant observers of the events in Cairo through their increasing engagement and politicisation. Beautifully filmed, I Am The People offers a refreshing perspective on the Arab Spring and its aftermath, and shows with great intimacy the ways in which the events have touched ordinary lives away from the square.

Directed by: Anna Roussillon
Produced by: Thomas Micoulet, Karim Aitouna, Malik Menaï
Runtime: 110′
Year: 2014
Country: France

Four and a half years ago Egypt dominated headlines globally with scenes of hope and change in Tahrir Square, yet now the country garners attention for a very different reason – the imprisonment of journalists.

Much has changed in Egypt since Nawal El Saadawi last spoke at the Frontline Club four years ago, and we are pleased to welcome her again to reflect on the situation today in Egypt. She will be joined in conversation with journalist Wendell Steavenson, who was in Tahrir four years ago and has covered the change that has taken place in subsequent years.

With Abdul Fattah al-Sisi due to visit Britain before the end of the year, we look at the track record of his government and how he is viewed by Egyptians across the board. We will be asking what democracy means in Egypt today.

Nawal El Saadawi is a renowned Egyptian writer, feminist and activist. She has published over 40 books, which have been translated into over 30 languages. New editions of three of her books have just been published: Woman at Point Zero, first released in 1975, The Hidden Face of Eve, and God Dies by the Nile and Other Novels.

Wendell Steavenson has lived in and reported from Georgia, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. She is the author of a number of books, including most recently Circling the Square: Stories from the Egyptian Revolution. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, The Telegraph, Granta, Slate.com, Time, The New Yorker and other publications.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

On the eighth floor of an ordinary-looking building in an otherwise residential district of southwest Moscow, in a room occupied by the Federal Security Service (FSB), is a box the size of a VHS player marked SORM. The Russian government’s front line in the battle for the future of the Internet, SORM is the world’s most intrusive listening device – monitoring e-mails, Internet usage, Skype, and all social networks.

In a new book The Red Web, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan peel back the history of advanced surveillance systems in Russia. They will be joining us to discuss what they found and to reveal how a free global exchange can be coerced into becoming a tool of repression and geopolitical warfare.

Having conducted interviews with numerous prominent officials in the Ministry of Communications and web-savvy activists challenging the state, the picture they paint sees dissidents, oligarchs, and some of the world’s most dangerous hackers collide in the uniquely Russian virtual world.

This event will be moderated by the BBC’s Home Affairs Correspondent, Daniel Sandford. Sandford was the BBC’s Moscow Correspondent from 2010-2014, and covered the annexation of Crimea, the war in Eastern Ukraine, the downing of MH17, the anti-Putin protests, and the detention of Pussy Riot.

The panel:

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan are cofounders of Agentura.Ru and authors of The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB. Soldatov worked for Novaya Gazeta from 2006 to 2008. Agentura.Ru and its reporting have been featured in The New York Times, Moscow Times, Washington Post, Online Journalism Review, Le Monde, The Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Federation of American Scientists, and the BBC.

Edin Omanovic is a Researcher at Privacy International, a London based NGO which investigates state surveillance and the industry which enables it. Omanovic advocates for greater transparency and accountability over the trade and use of surveillance technology, and has published several investigative reports and policy analyses on limiting the trade in surveillance technologies and protecting human rights from unlawful surveillance practices. Omanovic led research on Privacy International’s recent report on the use of Israeli, Russian, and European surveillance technology in Central Asia, Private Interests: Monitoring Central Asia, and was previously a Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute where he focused on the arms trade and illicit trafficking.

Tonia Samsonova is foreign correspondent for Echo Moskvy. She is also founder of TheQuestion.ru – a popular service that aims to connect people who have questions with those who are able to find answers, and through that interaction create and spread the culture of consciousness.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Everyday Rebellion is a cross-media documentary about creative forms of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience worldwide.

What does the Occupy movement in New York have in common with the Spanish Indignados protests or the Arab Spring? Is there a connection between the struggle of the Iranian democracy movement and the nonviolent uprising in Syria, and what is the link between the Ukrainian topless activists of Femen and an Islamic society like Egypt? And to top it off, what do Serbia and Turkey have to do with all of this?

The reasons for the various people’s uprisings in these countries may be diverse, but the creative nonviolent tactics they use in their struggles are strongly connected. So are the dedicated activists who share these strategies, new ideas and established methods. Everyday Rebellion is a story about the richness of peaceful protest, acted out everyday by passionate people from Spain, Iran, Syria, Ukraine, the USA, the UK and Serbia.

These methods are inventive, funny and unrelenting. And the activists who use them believe that creative nonviolent protest will triumph over violence in the effort to challenge dictatorships and the crushing power of global corporations. Everyday Rebellion is a tribute to the creativity of nonviolent resistance, and to a modern and rapidly-changing society in which new and inventive forms of protest are conceived every day.

Directed by Arman T. Riahi & Arash T. Riahi
Duration: 118′
Year: 2014
www.everydayrebellion.net