Synopsis:

Libya was only ever associated with one face: Gaddafi’s. But in February 2011 it suddenly arrived on the world stage with many. 

Women played a key role in the Libyan revolution, initiating the first protests, lobbying, smuggling arms and cooking food on the frontlines. In the first national elections, women were voted in as key decision makers. However, after this hopeful first step, the country took a different path and women have now been squeezed out of the equation yet again. Civil war, on-going assassinations and the rising presence of war lords and extremism is not the Libya these women, or anyone, had fought for…

Freedom Fields is the story of three accidental activists and their team. The three women play for their country’s female football team. They are friends, coming from different social and political backgrounds, different tribes, different classes and living in an environment plagued by war, paranoia, social constraints and corruption. 

“Freedom Fields is a film about having the power to dream, to have a choice to carve your own future, against privilege, and to impact those around you, even if just for 90 minutes on a field.” – Naziha Arebi

Ed Vulliamy has spent his life travelling the world to witness historical events, to see for himself what was happening, who were the people involved and what it meant to them, but also to listen to music. In his book When Words Fail, A Life with Music, War and Peace he explores the music and musicians who succeeded when words weren’t quite up to the job. From the need of a battle-weary population in Bosnia to hear a string trio (war having altered the original quartet) to allow themselves to feel alive while the bombs still fell like an accompanying percussion section to the rebels songs of Northern Ireland; from the soundtrack of Haight and Ashby, the love for the Plastic People of the Universe in Soviet Czechoslovakia, and the everlasting and complex genius of Shostakovich to the horror of the Bataclan massacre – Ed recounts his life of listening to music, and talking to the key creators.

Elisa Perrigueur is an independent journalist, specialising on migration issues in Europe and the activity of smugglers. She draws what is seen in reportage, areas of no rights, anonymous who do not want to be identified. Her visual responses to what she sees such as on the border city of Calais and England are expressed through watercolours and painting. She participated in the documentary “Calais, The End Of The Jungle” for BBC 2, as an assistant director. She is represented as an illustrator by Studio Hans Lucas. See some of her work here.

This is an exploration into the power of music, art, and the men and women who have dedicated their lives to understanding how and why it matters just so very much.

Photo Credit Image 1: Elisa Perrigueur – Port of Calais, one of the main “entrance” for the UK.

Photo Credit Image 2:  Elisa Perrigueur – Moria Camp in the dark.

Photo Credit Image 3: Elisa Perrigueur – Shores of Libya. Imagination, close to Sabratha. July 2017.

Matloff introduces us to Albanian teenagers involved in ancient blood feuds; Mexican peasants hunting down violent poppy growers; and Jihadists who have resisted the Russian military for decades. At every stop, she reminds us that we are all affected by the terrorism, drugs and instability that cascade down the mountainside.

A work of political travel writing in the vein of Ryszard Kapuscinski and Robert Kaplan, The War is in the Mountains is an indelible portrait of the conflicts that have unexpectedly shaped our world.

Judith Matloff has been writing about international affairs for 30 years, writing mainly about areas of turmoil. She covered 62 countries, as head of the Africa and Moscow bureaus of The Christian Science Monitor. Previously, Matloff spent a decade at Reuters in various staff positions in Europe and Africa. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times Magazine and Book Review, The Economist, Financial Times and Newsweek.

Chaired by Yemeni/ British journalist and filmmaker Nawal al-Maghafi. Nawal’s work has featured on Channel 4, BBC Newsnight, BBC World and BBC Arabic, amongst others.

Rifkind addressed a full house at the Frontline Club on Monday 21st Novemeber at a discussion about the future of conflict. Rifkind was joined by fellow panellists Paul Rogers, a professor in the department of Peace Studies at Bradford University, Julia Ebner, a Policy Analyist at Quilliam, and Julian E. Barnes from the Wall Street Journal, chaired by Jenny Kleeman, a British film-maker and journalist.

Paul Rogers identified a key issue in current conflict: ‘we’ve entered into an era of a revolution of frustrated expectations globally’, where people’s living standards are not rising with their expectations.

Julia Ebner believes a ‘global jihadist insurgency’ and a ‘far-right renaissance in Western countries’ are provoking a ‘phenomenon of reciprocal radicalisation’, where each party’s actions (such as anti-Muslim hate crimes and fundamentalist terror attacks) feed into the other’s grievances. For Ebner the solution lies in tackling those grievances and in tackling the ‘black-and-white narratives that are propagated from both sides’ which result in a worldview of the West and Islam being at war with each other.

Ebner was particularly concerned by the impact of fake news sites, as well as the echo chambers that are all too prevalent on the social media landscape in what she termed our ‘post-factual society’. Rifkind expressed similar concerns about social media, saying it ‘stimulates extremism, people… wind each other up and they get amplified… it’s hugely problematic in terms of stimulating extreme identities’. Barnes pointed to the ‘explosion of encryption technology and the ability very easily for groups or individuals to get very high-powered encryption that’s very difficult for intelligence services in the UK or the US to break.’

Although all of the panellists agreed that the so-called ‘war on terror’ has failed, Barnes said we should expect to see more of a focus on this under Trump, with Russia as a potential ally. Continuing the war on terror may be playing into the hands of Islamic terrorists who want war: Rogers argued that ‘if they present themselves as the true guardians of Islam under attack by crusader Zionist forces, then essentially it helps to be attacked’.

The panellists emphasised the importance of preventative work against conflict; but how do we get politicians to realise earlier that conflict is not the answer and to act early when politicians’ interests naturally lie in short-term success? Rifkind pointed out that ‘foreign policy is often about crisis management, it’s often about reacting rather than anticipating’, citing the Gaza conflict as a key example of this. Ebner, meanwhile, argued that the solution does not lie in politics at all, but within civil society, where we should ‘tell better stories than extremists are telling’.

IS is funded partly by Western Gulf states, and Barnes wonders if we might expect Trump to cut business from such countries ‘we very much could see more pressure [on allies which are known to fund terrorist groups] on this transactional approach’. However, IS campaigns are relatively cheap to run, and is able to maintain taxation within the territory, so a decline is as likely to come from a lack of appeal. None of this solves the underlying problems of the Arab world that made it so popular (the ‘revolution of frustrated expectations, as Rogers put it), such as unemployment. The underlying problem of marginalisation is here to stay, according to Rogers, who also named climate change as a major cause of future conflict and migration. Ebner added that uniting against climate change ‘could be part of the solution – it could also provide civil society with a common cause, an abstract enemy…rather than human beings fighting against human beings’.

Will World War III be mankind versus climate change? One can only hope.

The changing nature of conflict in the 21st century now requires a new toolbox. Are we using old methods for new problems in an age of irregular war? How can discourse surrounding international relations and conflict resolution respond to global terrorist movements and the permuting role of technology in warfare?

By exploring the timely question of intervention versus non-intervention, and examining the changing nature of warfare and technology, this discussion presents a comprehensive overview of new thinking on international diplomacy and the complexities of peace-making in the age of ‘irregular war’.

Chaired by Jenny Kleeman, British documentary film-maker and journalist who is best known for her work on Channel 4’s foreign affairs series Unreported World.

Speakers:

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy’s international security editor, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His latest book is Irregular War: ISIS and the New Threat from the Margins

Gabrielle Rifkind is the Director of the Oxford Process at Oxford Research Group, which leads on preventive diplomacy work and high-level mediation. She is a group analyst and specialist in conflict resolution. She combines in-depth political and psychological expertise with many years’ experience in promoting serious analysis and dialogue. As a political entrepreneur, Gabrielle has a deep understanding of human behaviour and motivation. She is co-author with Gianni Picco (former UN Under-Secretary-General and high-level Middle East negotiator) of “Fog of Peace: How to Prevent War”, an in-depth analysis of why conflict prevention requires a new approach.

Julian E. Barnes covers terrorism, NATO and security issues from the Wall Street Journal’s Brussels Bureau, which he joined in 2015. Previously he spent five years covering the Pentagon and national security issues from The Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau. Before joining the Journal in 2010, Mr. Barnes spent nearly a decade reporting on U.S. foreign policy and the military, including frequent reporting trips to Iraq and Afghanistan, for the Los Angeles Times and U.S. News and World Report. A graduate of Harvard University, He has also worked for the New York Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Julia Ebner is a Policy Analyst at Quilliam. Her research focuses on EU terrorism prevention initiatives and counter-extremism policies in the UK, France and Germany. She co-authored “The EU and Terrorism: Is Britain Safer In or Out?” and contributed extensively to the EU-funded TERRA policy advice report as well as research projects for FATE (Families Against Terrorism and Extremism) and the Kofi Annan Foundation. Julia has given evidence to parliamentary working groups, spoken at international conferences and in Parliament, held workshops in schools and universities, written for The Guardian, The Independent and Left Foot Forward and given live TV and radio interviews on BBC World News, CNN International, France24, BBC Radio, LBC and others.

Vulliamy spoke with Néstor Osorio Londoño, Colombia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Charlotte Gill, the director of the Caravana charity which promotes and protects human rights in the country. The audience all had the same question in mind – why did 50.2% of voters choose to reject the offer of peace?

In a war that has killed 250,000 and displaced more than 6 million, Gill thinks that “victims’ voices were lost” as the peace deal was debated in the build up to the referendum. Colombia’s largest cities largely rejected the deal offered by the government.

“It’s not just putting down your gun, it is looking at the systemic reasons why that violence occurs, why impunity exists for that violence, and really tackling those.” For the victims peace means truth, justice and guarantees of no repetition. “It’s not necessarily about retribution,” Gill said.

Londoño is optimistic that the negotiations have opened the doors to peace, and to an understanding of the conflict.

“One of the biggest revelations of this process has been to witness the personalities of the Farc leaders and for them to discover the personalities of our negotiators. They are very articulate, intelligent people that have been genuinely fighting for a cause but with the wrong methods. I think that this [peace] process has allowed them to become closer to society.”

Yet, Londoño is the first to admit the process had its flaws, as – he reminds us in the wake of the British vote on the EU – referendums do. “Many of the people who vote No just vote against the government, and wake up thinking ‘Oh my goodness, I voted No but I didn’t know we were going to win’,” he said, “It’s like the Brexit feeling.”

Gill agrees, “If you feel totally isolated, vulnerable and attacked by the state then engaging in a process that’s driven by the state may not be something you want to be part of.” She believes this could also explain the extremely low turnout of 38% – along with complacency as polls pointed to support for the peace treaty. With Hurricane Matthew tearing through the country on the same day people may have been reluctant to go out and vote.

Nor did all people understand the terms of the vote. They were given very little warning, Gill said. Especially in such a polarised and dispersed society, six weeks was not enough time to reach the people.

“People were not sufficiently educated and informed about what was going on,” Londoño agrees. He wonders how many people read the 297-page peace accord, and accepts the government should have done more: “If you are thinking about consulting your people you have to educate, inform. This vote wasn’t very well informed. It was a reactive passion.”

Yet, Londoño does not regret putting the decision to the public, when it could have easily been passed through Congress with a majority. “It is important to give the people the last word on a matter of crucial importance to the country,” he said. After all, “peace belongs to the country and to the people of Colombia.”

The result must not lead to another dragging peace negotiation, Londoño insists. Nor can it be solved through minor changes. “There must be real and concrete modifications to political participation and justice,” he said.

Ukrainian Sheriffs follows Viktor and Volodya, two men who have been appointed local sheriffs by the mayor in the isolated town of Stara Zburyevka, Ukraine. While dealing with petty crimes such as stolen ducks and drunken neighbours, the news about the war slowly creeps in on them through their televisions and pressure to join the army. Meanwhile, the tragicomic situations dealt with by the inexperienced ‘sheriffs’ have their roots in the prevalent unemployment, poverty and illiteracy in the region.

The filmmakers follow the adventures of Viktor and Volodya with a keen eye for the comical side of everyday situations. Driving in their yellow Lada flying its own little Ukrainian flag, they travel from incident to incident – calming an angry neighbour, investigating the discovery of a body, struggling to unfold a stroller and attempting to re-integrate the community’s freeloaders. The seasons pass until political developments reach the village by way of the TV screen, sowing separatist discord. Around the time of the celebrations for the country’s 70th Independence Day, the men of the village are drafted into the army.

Ukrainian Sheriffs offers a lighthearted yet telling look beyond the war and inside everyday life in small town Ukraine.

Ukrainian Sheriffs received the 2015 IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) Special Jury Award.

Directed by: Roman Bondarchuk
Country: Ukraine/Latvia/Germany
Year: 2015
Runtime: 85′

It is now thirteen years since US and British troops entered Iraq and the significant costs are still being counted: hundreds of thousands of lives lost, millions of refugees, increased insecurity for the UK, enormous financial cost, and the emergence of Daesh contributing to an increasingly volatile region. Will the much-delayed report sufficiently address the UK’s widely criticised involvement? We will be joined by a panel of experts to hear their initial reactions – and without the power to assign criminal culpability, we will consider the report’s potential impact in bringing those accountable to justice and in assuring that a foreign policy disaster of this scale is not repeated.

Chaired by Channel 4 News international editor, Lindsey Hilsum.

The panel:

Hayder al-Khoei is an associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House and research director of the Centre for Academic Shi’a Studies. He is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s Task Force on the future of Iraq.

Carne Ross is the executive director of Independent Diplomat. He is a former British diplomat who resigned in 2004 after giving evidence to the Butler Inquiry into the Iraq war.

Emma Sky is a Senior Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute. She worked in the Middle East for twenty years and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services in Iraq. She is the author of The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq.

Christopher Elliott, retired as a major general from the British Army in 2002. He is currently a visiting professor of Cranfield University, an associate fellow of RUSI and author of High Command: British Military Leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

On the release of his new book Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea, we will be joined by senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) Dr Shiraz Maher – in conversation with journalist Clarissa Ward – to discuss the origins and development of salafi-jihadism. We will be tracing the evolution of the key ideas behind one of today’s most destructive forces – as well as its transmutation and growing prominence in recent years. We will explore what salafi-jihadism seeks to achieve, and the extent to which its rapid escalation is a product of recent wars.

This event will be moderated by Clarissa Ward, a multi award-winning senior international correspondent based at CNN London.

Dr. Shiraz Maher is a member of the War Studies department at King’s College London and a senior research fellow in its International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR). He currently leads the Centre’s research on the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts and also researches the political philosophy of Salafi-Jihadi movements. He is an adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, and has given evidence before three parliamentary committees on the Syrian conflict, the flow of foreign fighters into the country, and the rise of Islamic State. He is a contributing writer for the New Statesman, and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in Journalism in 2016.

The Siege of Sarajevo, lasting from 1992 to 1996, was the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. After Bosnia and Herzegovina had declared independence from Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Serbs — whose goal was to create a new Bosnian Serb state that would include parts of Bosnian territory – encircled Sarajevo with a force of 13,000.

In this award-winning new documentary acclaimed journalists Remy Ourdan and Patrick Chauvel masterfully capture the experiences of the city’s residents who experienced the siege firsthand. As these men and women recall memories of everyday life under the blockade, history interweaves with personal testimony to create a humanising portrait of battle and resistance.

Sarajevo was a multi-ethnic crossroads between East and West. When the fighting began, Sarajevo was the unarmed capital of a state without an army. For Sarajevans, the war came as a surprise, and the city remained besieged for almost four years. Utilising rarely seen archive footage, poignant interviews and astounding photography, The Seige presents a multi-layered and personal account of a vertiginous descent into war.

A siege is a unique phenomenon in a war: the entire city becomes the frontline, where fighters and civilians struggle and live together. For Sarajevans, their resistance was as much political, intellectual and artistic as it was military. With sensitivity for their subjects, Remy Ourdan and Patrick Chauvel present an entirely new image of the Siege of Sarajevo in which survivors tell their own stories.

The Siege was awarded the Gold FIPA 2016 for best documentary.

In coproduction with ARTE, Institut National de l’Audiovisuel, Pro Ba (Bosnia)
Directed by: Remy Ourdan and Patrick Chauvel
Produced by: Blanche Guichou / AGAT Films & Cie
Country: France
Year: 2016
Runtime: 90′