Past Events and Screenings

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Chloe Ruthven.
In 2008 the Indian Government launched an initiative to train 500 million of the rural poor to work in its growing industrial sector. Migrants from the rural areas of India now make up a significant percentage of the labour force in India. Seduced by the opportunity to be independent, many hopeful young women, like best friends Bhanu and Bhutu, try their luck working for garment factories, yet the women’s inexperience leaves them terribly susceptible to exploitation.

The Club Quiz returns in July to test your knowledge. Use this great excuse to get your friends together and explore the members’ Clubroom with its fascinating history and displays of memorabilia.

On 16 August 2012, South African police opened fire on a large crowd of men who were on strike from the Marikana platinum mine. The police action resulted in 112 people being shot and 34 killed. Nearly three years on from the massacre and as the Marikana Commission are due to publish their inquiry into what happened, we will be holding a special event in two parts to explore politics, power and platinum in South Africa.

In September 2012, the tiny prairie town of Leith, North Dakota, saw its population of 24 grow by one. Trouble had come to town. The newcomer was Craig Cobb, a notorious white supremacist. Quietly snapping up plots of land, he planned to take over the town government and establish Cobbsville, a haven for white separatists.
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with directors Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker.

For July’s BookNights we are delighted to welcome the distinguished former foreign affairs correspondent for the BBC, Martin Bell, OBE, who will present his book The End of Empire over an intimate dinner with Frontline Club members.

Before his career as a BBC war reporter and independent MP, Martin Bell also served as a soldier in Cyprus between 1957 and 1959. In a chocolate box in his attic many years later he found more than 100 letters that he had sent home to his family. He was not a journalist then, but the letters are war reports of a sort, impressions of what it was like to be a conscript on active service during the EOKA rebellion against British rule.

Acts of journalism should be shielded from targeted surveillance, data retention and handover of material connected to confidential sources. This is a key early finding from a recent study commissioned by UNESCO on the state of journalistic source protection in 121 countries. In an event in partnership with the Foreign Press Association, we will be joined by the author of the study, Australian journalist and journalism academic Julie Posetti, and other experts to discuss the implications of the findings and what needs to be done to ensure journalists can fully protect their sources.

A monthly social evening for journalists and others in the London media world. The London Press Club, which has been bringing the industry together since 1882, is resurrecting the tradition of regular drinks, on the back of popular demand.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Alexandre Westphal.
Hutu women as well as men took up arms and went amok killing their neighbours during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. In Shades of True eight female perpetrators, who have been imprisoned for taking part in the genocide, recount their experiences with clarity and a shocking lack of sentimentality.

Hyeonseo Lee was just seventeen when she fled North Korea. She found herself in China, alone and with no identity. Her mother’s first words over the telephone to her lost daughter were “Don’t come back”. We are pleased to welcome her to the Frontline Club to share her insight into growing up in North Korea, the story of her escape and how she went on to rebuild her life and discover her identity.

Weaving together stories of hardship and brutality with touches of humanity, Samar Yazbek‘s new book The Crossing documents several dangerous clandestine trips she took into the North of her country and is testimony to the appalling reality that is Syria today. She will be joining us in conversation with Syrian writer and broadcaster, Rana Kabbani, to share her observations and what she heard from the people about their hopes and fears for the future.

This screening will be followed by a discussion with author Mariusz Szczygieł.
The Frontline Club is delighted to partner with the Polish Institute and the 13th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival to bring you a screening of Gottland, directed by Viera Cákanyová, Petr Hátle, Rozálie Kohoutová, Lukás Kokes, Radovan Síbrt, and Klára Tasovská. Gottland is a cross-genre film based on selected parts of the international bestseller Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia (European book of the year 2009) by Mariusz Szczygieł.

We welcome our members, both recently joined and ongoing, for an evening of conversation and drinks kindly sponsored by Chivas Brothers.

Across much of the world people face a daily battle with corruption. We will be joined by Sarah Chayes and Tom Burgis, whose investigations have taken them deep into the workings of corrupt systems across Africa, Afghanistan and elsewhere. From the local power brokers to the international corporations, they will be discussing what they discovered about how corrupt systems operate, the implications locally and globally, and what can be done to more effectively tackle them.

For June’s BookNight we are pleased to welcome author and special advisor at Human Rights Watch Fred Abrahams, who will present his book Modern Albania From Dictatorship to Democracy in Europe over an intimate dinner with Frontline Club members. A rich, narrative-driven account, Modern Albania gives readers a front-row seat to the dramatic events of the last battle of Cold War Europe.

This event is organised by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) and the Frontline Freelance Register (FFR).
News Reporting and Navigating Risk will be a moderated discussion with accomplished journalists who have reported from hostile environments around the world about their experiences with a focus on best practices for security, emotional self care, and access to medical, mental health, and emergency resources.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Mark Aitken and journalist Ed Vulliamy.

Compassion and self-affirmation are discovered by a man as he manages a mental asylum run by its own patients in Juárez, Mexico – the world’s most violent city. Juárez, a city that borders the United States, is at once a place of diverse culture and tradition and a site of desperation and rampant poverty.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Morgan Knibbe.
Conflict, economic crisis, and depleting environmental resources are driving increasing numbers of people to attempt the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe. Those Who Feel the Fire Burning, Morgan Knibbe‘s innovative and genre-blurring film, places viewers in the perspective of a person who has begun this dangerous and desperate journey to Europe by sea.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Manon Loizeau.
Award-winning journalist Manon Loizeau has spent the past 20 years covering the Chechen conflict. In Chechnya, War Without Trace she returns to the places she knew well, filming undercover, to examine the lasting effects of conflict with Russia.

Internationally renowned Afghan-born photographer Zalmaï has spent years capturing the human cost of disintegration and dispossession caused by war around the world. In a new body of work, entitled Dread and Dreams, he turns his lens to his own country to capture life in Afghanistan against the backdrop of the 14-year US-led invasion. He will be joining us in conversation with editor-in-charge of Reuters Wider Image, Alexia Singh, to present this deeply personal and humanistic body of work of Afghan refugees, by an Afghan refugee.

Continuing the Exploration at the Frontline collaboration between the Frontline Club and the Scientific Exploration Society, BBC Science editor David Shukman will chair a panel of explorers, scientists, reporters and experts to better understand how Arctic exploration has changed over the years.