News
Kleptoscope Two: The Alchemy of Making Money from Sand
The second evening in the Kleptoscope series explored the illicit wealth originating from the Middle East that flows through the capital’s economy.
Irregular War: The Future of Global Conflicts
‘If we’re trying to actually resolve conflict… then we have to think, how do we get into the mind of the other?’ Gabrielle Rifkind.
Breaking Point: The EU Referendum and its Aftermath
There are some things about Brexit that we simply can’t know. No amount of opinion pieces, panel discussions, or leaked memos will change that. As Iain Macwhirter, a political commentator for the Herald and Sunday Herald, quipped, ‘We all know that Brexit means Brexit, but nobody knows what Brexit means!’ So, what does Brexit mean?
A Country in Motion: Films from Burma
“The fact that we can even make these films is representative of the change in this country,” said Lamin Oo, speaking to a full Frontline Club from Burma. Oo is one of his nation’s predominant emerging filmmakers and of the many talents being showcased at the Frontline Club’s ‘A Country in Motion: Films From Burma’ […]
Drones: National Bird of USA
National Bird is a documentary about the effects of drone warfare conducted by the US in Afghanistan as part of its war against terrorism. It also incidentally became a documentary on whistleblowing. Drone pilots Lisa, Heather and Daniel reveal how drone warfare, presented as efficacious and selective, is much more liable to error than US officials are […]
Groundtruth: 0% of US TV coverage of the election had to do with policy
Just days before the result of the 2016 US Presidential Election, Boston-based foreign news organisation GroundTruth took part in a panel debate on the question of media credibility. In town for a team meeting, Charles Sennott and Gary Knight, founders of GroundTruth, shared their commitment to training up-and-coming talent in global correspondents in an age when […]
Redefining Foreign Correspondence
The role of the foreign correspondent has changed immeasurably in the past 20 years. With phones tracked by enemy satellites and an ever increasing kidnap bounty on their head, the days of journalists passing through a checkpoint with 200 cigarettes and a bottle of scotch are over. On Tuesday 1st November, in an event organised […]
The blood flow of the global economy
‘These came by ship,’ journalist Rose George remarked in the opening minutes of the film, casting her eyes over her clothes, ‘my shoes probably came by ship, the microphone certainly…’ The device you’re using to read this blog probably did too: 90% of everything we consume arrives in a shipping container.
Unconstitutional abortion laws highlighted by documentary
Director Dawn Porter was a lawyer before she was a filmmaker. Her film, Trapped, is about the impact of abortion regulation on clinics in southern US states. It’s rare to have a story where the main plot is legislation, but it works, and it’s heart-breaking.
A conversation with Patrick Cockburn
Each conflict is nuanced, its history and its fanatics. We, as consumers of entertainment, are taught to laud our heroes and demonize our villains, forgetting that the real world breeds only people and their overlapping interests.
Violent Borders: Border Conflict, Security and the Refugee Crisis
In the absence of legitimate methods of travelling to safer lands, smugglers enjoy a booming trade with a huge supply of refugees willing to pay to escape their home country. Elinor Raikes discussed the irony of a system that refuses entry actually increases risk: “you’re pushing people into these illegal, uncontrolled, unmanaged routes, and actually it’s worse for our security.”
Displacement and demography: Colombia
“Not quite the evening we thought we were going to have”, began Ed Vulliamy, journalist for The Guardian and The Observer. A talk that was expected to celebrate the formal end to 52 years of civil war, ended up examinging why a much celebrated peace deal between the Farc and the Colombian government was rejected in a public referendum.
The Nauru files: changing the narrative of media coverage on refugee issues
“It is very hard for Muslim girls to live in Burma. For the boys it is not so dangerous. They just get killed,” said the first girl, 13. “I consumed washing detergents… poison… I’m so tired of everything,” said the second girl.
Kleptoscope: London’s Dirty Money
“Three quarters of money looted in Russia comes to the UK.” The audience sat in stunned silence. Roman Borisovich continued, “there is an army of UK bankers, accountants, lawyers, trustees, and other professionals assisting Russian corruption.”
In the Picture with Paula Bronstein: Afghanistan – Between Hope and Fear
‘Mob rule took over’ she said quietly, ‘and they killed her’. The grief and anger at Farkhunda Malikzada’s funeral is one of many harrowing events Paula Bronstein has documented. But her latest book, Afghanistan – Between Hope and Fear, captures not only the tragedy of a country ravaged by war: it also shows the joy.
Marketing and Events Internship: Autumn-Winter 2016
The Frontline Club is seeking an enthusiastic and ambitious intern to join our team from September through December 2016 to support marketing and administration of the events programme. This position will be based in our Paddington, London office three days per week with a flexible schedule. The selected candidate will have the opportunity to attend […]
The Hard Stop: portraying the people behind the London riots
Words and pictures by Heenali Patel One summer morning in 2011, London’s Metropolitan Police pulled over Mark Duggan– a young, black, British man– and shot him dead. His killing sparked what became known as the Tottenham riots, and set off a chain reaction of arson and looting across the country. Images of burning buildings and […]
In Focus: The Divide
The Frontline Club’s Documentary Programmer Julianne Rooney and director Katharine Round analyse a scene in The Divide, her documentary about rising global inequality.
City 40: film lifts veil on secretive nuclear town
On Tuesday 14 June, a packed-out Frontline Club hosted a screening of the acclaimed documentary City 40 followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Samira Goetschel and Guardian journalist Luke Harding.
Holy Lands: Sectarianism in the Middle East
On Thursday 19 May, the Frontline Club hosted a panel on sectarianism in the Middle East, the formation of secular nation-states and the roots of the conflicts of today.
He Named Me Malala: Education and the Refugee Crisis
“We learn so much from Malala, she tells us that we have a voice in the West but we take it for granted”, Guwali Passarlay.
“Times are Changing” But Little has Changed for Ordinary Cubans
Whilst institutional changes in Cuban foreign relations make headlines in global media, the daily-lives of ordinary people on the island are yet to see huge improvements.
Whistleblowers and Bounty Hunters: Combating Corruption and Organised Crime
“They used to describe Tsarist Russia as monarchy moderated by assassination but now it seems to be total secrecy moderated by insane leaks.”
Europe’s Refugee Crisis – The New Odyssey
“I felt like [the whole of] Syria was on a dinghy. And we were not welcome.” – Hassan Akkad Heated discussion on the issue of Europe’s crisis in handling the arrival of refugees took place at the Frontline Club on Wednesday 4 May.
The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism
From the rise of anti-Western paranoia and imperialist rhetoric to the intervention in Syria and the annexation of Crimea, a distinct theory of Russian national identity based on ethnicity and geography, Eurasianism, has moved from the fringes of political discourse to become official state policy.
The Dark Links with Illegal Wildlife Trafficking
When Andrew Mitchell began his career as a young zoologist in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park some decades ago, he and his colleagues spent their days radio-tracking the movements of the black rhinoceros. At that point there were believed to be roughly 16,000 rhinos roaming around the park. Today, owing to widespread poaching, there are just 67.
Visionary Awards: Remembering Tim Hetherington
The Frontline Club played host to the Tim Hetherington Trust on 19 April 2015 for an evening that honoured Tim’s memory and discussed his legacy through the work of artists and journalists whose work reflects his innovative approach to visual media.
Zaina Erhaim on Syria’s Rebellious Women
Living and working in Aleppo, Erhaim captured the everyday difficulties – the maddening and the mundane – of surviving in a warzone. Shooting the films over the course of 18 months, Syria’s Rebellious Women documents the extraordinary lives of the citizen journalists who bear witness to the horrors taking place in their homeland.
Framing the Future of Water
The future of water is uncertain. More than 650 million of the world’s poorest people are living without access to an ‘improved’ source of drinking water, according to a WaterAid briefing.
