Past Events and Screenings

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 infamous Club Quiz returns in 2014 with quizmasters Caroline Johns and Dr Keith Surridge.

This event is organised in partnership with Port Magazine. In late winter in 2012, following in the footsteps of Eric Newby, French photographer Frédéric Lagrange journeyed to the foothills of the Hindu Kush. Lagrange will be joining us in a discussion chaired by the The Independent’s defence correspondent, Kim Sengupta and featuring Rory Stewart MP, whose 32-day solo walk across Afghanistan in early 2002 was the basis for his first book, The Places in Between. Lagrange will present his work and they will discuss the fears and concerns he heard from the Wakhi people about the upcoming Nato withdrawal and an uncertain future.

In June 2013, Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran, running with a mandate of “moderation and wisdom”. He promised to free political prisoners and guarantee civil rights, to return “dignity to the nation”. As dialogue with the US and other world powers continues to improve, we will be exploring the changes this new leader is enacting both on the international stage and within Iran.

In the past, the term ‘Here Be Dragons’ was used by cartographers to indicate an unexplored area on a map, in fear of what could lurk there. In his new essay film, Mark Cousins goes on an explorative journey through Albania, interweaving views of the capital Tirana and its inhabitants with old film clips, painting a picture of the political and cultural landscape. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Mark Cousins and producer Don Boyd.

Following on from April’s meeting of the country’s top student papers, Grapevine is bringing together aspiring journalists for another night of inspiration. Once again there will be two panels, this time looking at the future of traditional media in the age of mass data, multimedia and the Internet.

We will be joined by a panel working on the edges of the news to get the stories where conventional means have failed. They will be talking about the technology and the techniques that they use, looking at how content is verified, and how you can empower people to tell their own stories and distribute it to local and international communities.

For more than two years, Egyptians have turned out in massive numbers to occupy Cairo’s Tahrir Square and demand change. Director Jehane Noujaim captured what has happened in the square through the eyes of several young revolutionaries. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Khalid Abdalla, an accomplished actor who put his career on hold to document the revolution.

On 28 October in China’s iconic and politically sensitive Tiananmen Square, a car crashed through crowds and exploded, killing two tourists and three suspects. Just over a week later, on 6 November, one person died and eight were injured following a series of small blasts outside a Communist Party office in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province.

In a year that marks the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, we will be joined by a panel of experts to explore the significance of these two fatal incidents, looking at the levels of dissent in China and how it is being suppressed. We will also be asking who are those behind these attacks and what are their motivations.

Every year thousands of organs are bought and sold on a black market that flourishes in dozens of countries, where the rule of law is a hostage to the dollar sign. With unprecedented access to all the players, the film explores the legal, moral and ethical issues involved in this complex life and death business. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ric Esther Bienstock.

While nine American states allow late-term abortions, only four doctors in the country are willing to perform them. In the wake of the 2009 assassination of practitioner Dr George Tiller in Kansas, After Tiller intimately explores the highly controversial subject of third-trimester abortions. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with co-director Lana Wilson.

Fighting continues as delegations from South Sudan’s warring factions meet for talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The country, which gained its independence in July 2011, has seen at least 1,000 killed and 180,000 displaced since mid-December.

We will be joined by a panel of experts, journalists and aid workers to give you an up-to-date picture of what is happening on the ground and an insight into the divisions and tensions that have caused the conflict.

Join us for the annual members’ party, celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Frontline Club and the end of another incredible year of talks, debates and documentary screenings.

Please note that this event is open to current members of the Frontline Club and their guests only.

Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Despite the constant threat, Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya Lima continues to work tirelessly to investigate armed conflict, drug trafficking, organised crime and issues around women and violence. We are honoured to welcome her to the Frontline Club, she will be talking to Ed Vulliamy, a writer for The Guardian and Observer, about her prolific career as a journalist in Colombia, the work she does on conflict-related sexual violence and the ongoing peace process.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Dylan Mohan Gray. Chaired by Polly Markandya, head of communications at Médecins sans Frontières (MSF).
This Sundance-nominated tale of ‘medicine, monopoly and malice’ by first-time director Dylan Mohan Gray, tells the story of an unlikely group of people who took on giant pharmaceutical companies and Western governments to stop ‘the crime of the century’ and save millions of lives.

Former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent, Frances Harrison, investigates on-going allegations of rape and torture by the Sri Lankan security forces for BBC Our World.

This year the Frontline Club is ten and to mark the occasion we will be joined by a panel of journalists to look back on ten years on the front line. Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow will be chairing a panel of journalists including the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, Anthony Loyd of The Times, ITV News’ Bill Neely and Afghan journalist Shoaib Sharifi.

An epic film version of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, tells the story from his childhood in a rural village to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa. Starring Idris Elba and Naomie Harris, it tells story of an ordinary man who rose to the challenge of his times and triumphed – an intimate portrait of the making of a modern icon. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with screenwriter Bill Nicholson chaired by the BBC’s Audrey Brown.

Filmmaker Chloe Ruthven’s grandparents were aid workers in Palestine. Growing up, she avoided getting too involved in the subject, recalling how mention of it made all the adults in her life angry. Inspired by a book written by her grandmother about the aid projects in Palestine, Ruthven explores the effects of foreign aid and the potential damage the continued reliance may have for the future. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Chloe Ruthven and protagonist Lubna Masarwa.

Carbon Crooks documents the failure of carbon trading, a system set up to cut down carbon emissions and curb global warming. Through interviews and case studies the film investigates the mechanisms of fraud in the carbon markets. This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Tom Heinemann.