Past Events and Screenings

Founded by a group of award-winning photographers committed to covering the stories affecting the world around them and in partnership with Libre, a group of web-passionate developers, Me-Mo is a documentary photography magazine that strives to push the limits of visual storytelling. Following the release of issue #1, out on digital newsstands from 19 January, Me-Mo co-founders Manu Brabo and Fabio Bucciarelli and Libre president Matteo Dispenza, will be joining us at the Frontline Club to present the project and the inspiration behind it, and to talk about how technology is influencing new medias. Brabo and Bucciarelli will also present their work, featured in issue #1, from the Libyan revolution.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Jocelyn Ford.

Nowhere To Call Home tells the powerful story of Zanta, a Tibetan woman who moves to Beijing against the wishes of her in-laws so that her young son can receive an education. Widowed at 28, Tibetan farmer Zanta defies her tyrannical father-in-law and after her husband’s death refuses to marry the family’s only surviving son. When Zanta’s in-laws won’t let her seven-year-old child go to school, she flees her village and heads to Beijing where she becomes a street vendor.

Shrinking editorial budgets have resulted in journalists increasingly turning to aid agencies to cover stories. In conflict and disaster zones, aid agencies often have the local knowledge and access to affected communities. Journalists need these stories, while aid agencies are equally in need of the media coverage. Although it appears to be an ideal partnership, this kind of embedded journalism raises significant editorial and security questions.

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

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Kristof Bilsen.

Elephant’s Dream is a portrait of three State-owned institutions and their employees in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Filmed in Kinshasa, the third largest city in Africa, Bilsen’s film presents several institutions as sites of ghostly abandonment that mirror the country’s disappearing resources.

In November 2013, the protests in Ukraine began peacefully but eventually, after much confusion and chaos, drums, bagpipes and European flags seamlessly turned into bloody resistance. When the first casualties fell on both sides, no matter how black and white it seemed from outside, the line between good and bad blurred. This collective project by Ukrainian filmmakers Oleksandr Techynskyi, Aleksey Solodunov and Dmitry Stoykov, offers a powerful insight into the way the events unfolded in Kiev. This screening is in partnership with Open City Docs Fest and will be followed by a Q&A with director Oleksandr Techynskyi.

Last month, when the world’s attention was focused on the attacks in France, reports emerged that as many as 2,000 people had been killed in the northeast Nigerian town of Baga. This attack comes as part of an increased surge in violence linked to Boko Haram.

As Nigeria gears up for a presidential election on 14 February, we will be exploring what is being done to combat Boko Haram and why these efforts seem to be failing.

For February’s members’ BookNight we are pleased to welcome acclaimed Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov, who will present his recently published book Ukrainian Diaries over an intimate dinner with Frontline Club members.

It is a year since protests erupted in Ukraine. The events that followed saw the fall of Viktor Yanukovych, the annexation of Crimea and violent clashes breaking out across the east of the country. As the stand off with Russia continues, we will be taking a view of the situation in Ukraine one year on. Will 2015 see an end to the most dangerous conflict to grip Europe since the wars in the former Yugoslavia?

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.

In Morocco, the world’s first female Muslim leaders are setting out to change their country: empowering women through the teachings of Islam and challenging the attitudes which breed extremism. Through personal stories, family dramas and everyday lives, Casablanca Calling takes us into the heart of this quiet social revolution through the lives of the women at its forefront. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Rosa Rogers and producer Hilary Durman.

The scale of journalist and aid-worker kidnappings in Syria has raised questions about government policies on paying ransoms and the use of media blackouts. We will be bringing together a panel to debate the current policies towards ransom and blackouts. We will be asking if they need to be reformed, and if so, what they should look like in the future.

This event is off the record, please refrain from filming and reporting the discussion.

Every year thousands of Africans leave their families behind in search of a better life in Europe. Ditte Haarløv Johnsen‘s intimate portrayal of everyday life after emigration explores the lives of three very different African immigrants, from three different places, who have embarked on a perilous journey to reach a common destination: Europe. With rawness and dignity, Days of Hope presents personal experiences of migration and the individual struggles faced by African immigrants in Europe. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ditte Haarløv Johnsen.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Annalisa Piras and executive producer Bill Emmott.

Following the success of Girlfriend in a Coma, director Annalisa Piras brings us an artfully constructed depiction of how Europe is sleepwalking toward disaster, starring Angus Deayton in fiction scenes from a post-EU future. Piras pairs an imagined view from a dystopian future with insightful analysis on how and why things are going so wrong by ordinary Europeans and economic and political experts.

After a devastating defeat in the midterm elections, which saw the Democrats lose control of the Senate, what can we expect from President Barack Obama as he enters his final two years in office? With events in Ferguson, Missouri highlighting the deep racial divides that still exist in the US, we will be asking what the legacy will be of the country’s first African-American president.

In Mubarak’s Egypt, director Charlie Smith investigates America’s role during the final years of Hosni Mubarak’s regime. By then Egypt, once the Arab world’s most important power, had become a regional bit-player stagnating in corruption and cronyism. With contributions from many of the leading players in Cairo and Washington, the film shows how revolution became the only option left to the millions betrayed by the rule of a modern-day pharaoh. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Charlie Smith and executive producer Christopher Mitchell.

Join us for an evening of short documentaries, from different parts of the world, covering a wide range of topics. Shorts at the Frontline Club showcases moving, striking and funny films, exploring the many different faces of documentary filmmaking. 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 one particular remarkable event or person.

The Club Quiz returns in 2015 with quizmasters Caroline Johns and Dr Keith Surridge. They have prepared questions that will test your knowledge and live up to the reputation of being billed as one of ‘the hardest quizzes in London’.

France is in mourning after three days of violence that saw 17 of its citizens killed. Violent events began on Wednesday 7 January with the brutal attack on the offices of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo and ended two days later with sieges on two hostage sites.

As the country begins to come to terms with what has happened, we will be joined by a panel to take a view of events and to discuss the repercussions for society and security in France. We will also be tackling the arguments around the use of freedom of expression.

Foreign fighters are travelling to Syria and Iraq on an ‘unprecedented scale’ according to a recent United Nations report. In the UK a new Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill proposing new counter-terror powers, including temporary exclusion orders and the powers to seize passports of terror suspects, has been met by concern that it threatens civil liberties. We will be joined by a panel of experts to debate this new bill and the measures it sets out.