The Frontline Club

To Light A Candle is a film by journalist Maziar Bahari, author of Then They Came for Me, focusing on the Baha’is of Iran and their peaceful response to decades of state-sponsored persecution. The Baha’is are Iran’s largest religious minority. Persecuted for their faith, they are barred from teaching and studying at University.

Following a screening of To Light a Candle the Frontline Club hosted a discussion between journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari, spokesperson for Baha’is of the UK Padideh Sabeti, moderated by former Time magazine Middle East correspondent Azadeh Moaveni.

Zaina Erhaim is joined by Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley.

Living and working in Aleppo, Syria, Erhaim directed the film series Syria’s Rebellious Women over a period of 18 months to offer a rare insight into the challenges facing women living and working in rebel-held parts of Syria.

Revealing a side of Syria that is often absent from the news, the films tell the individual stories of a diverse group of strong, resilient women. As well as facing the constant threat of bombing, the women must battle the conservative traditions of a male-dominated society and tackle restrictions on their movements, dress and behaviour. Despite disapproval from their families, the women continue undeterred along the paths they have chosen – documenting war, delivering supplies to civilians, and providing medical services.

This event featured screenings of Zaina‘s short films from the series Syria’s Rebellious Women, as well as a Q&A with Zaina who is in London as one of the finalists in the Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2016.

Zaina Erhaim currently lives and works in Aleppo, Syria. Over the last two years, she has trained over 100 citizen reporters from inside Syria, approximately a third of them women, in print and TV journalism. Erhaim is also the Syria project coordinator for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), an international organisation that support journalists in countries undergoing conflict, crisis, or transition. Many of Erhaim’s students, from all walks of life, have been published in major international news outlets. ​

Roger Tooth, is the picture editor of the The Guardian, and was joined by Francis Hodgson, professor in the Culture of Photography at the University of Brighton at the frontline club. In their discussion Roger discusses how technology has irreversibly changed photojournalism, not competing for exclusive photo rights and treating photographers as humans.

After a decade long man hunt, in 2011 an elite group of US Navy SEALS stormed an enclosure in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden. The story of what transpired was soon released and the news did much to boost President Obama’s re-election campaign.

Four years on investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a controversial London Review of Books essay presenting a very different version of what happened on that night and in the lead-up.

Hersh will be joining us in conversation with David Loyn, freelance writer, journalist and former BBC foreign correspondent, to discuss his new book, The Killing of Osama Bin Laden, which expands on that essay and delves into the foreign policy decisions made by the White House under Obama’s leadership.

Seymour Hersh has written for The New Yorker and the London Review of Books, as well as serving as a Washington correspondent for The New York Times. He established himself at the forefront of investigative journalism more than four decades ago with an exposé of the massacre in My Lai, Vietnam, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Since then he has uncovered stories such as Kissinger’s role in extending the Vietnam War as well as the military torture regime at Abu Ghraib prison.

A panel of professionals from a range of disciplines, including journalists and water experts, will come together for a unique event to talk about one of the biggest challenges facing our planet today.

The future of water isn’t a simple topic – it is vast and can often be overwhelming. During the discussion we will explore how this topic can be made accessible through the power of storytelling and film.

We will premiere four short documentaries which were produced as part of the global sH2Orts film competition, organised by WaterAid in partnership with the Public Media Alliance’s WorldView project. Each film offers a unique insight into the global water crisis and urges us to think about how we can respond to it.

The discussion which follows will focus on climate change, innovation, urbanisation and inequality – and how they relate to the global water crisis.

Panelists

Mark Galloway, Director of International Broadcasting Trust (Moderator)

Before joining IBT, Mark worked as a journalist, current affairs producer and documentary filmmaker. He’s been a Channel 4 Commissioning Editor, responsible for Education and Features, and has made films for ITV, Channel 4, the BBC, Discovery and Al Jazeera, winning more than a dozen national and international awards including a Gold Medal at the New York Film Festival, a Peabody Award and a BAFTA. At IBT, Mark is responsible for the day to day running of the organization, overall strategy, research and relations with IBT’s members.

Alok Jha is a journalist, broadcaster and author of The Water Book. He is the science correspondent at ITV News. Before that, he spent a decade at the Guardian and made programmes for the BBC.

Bethlehem Mengistu has over 12 years experience in the development sector, with special focus on gender equality, human rights, good governance and provision of basic services. She has worked within senior roles for organizations such as WaterAid, Care International, Action Aid and notable grassroots women’s organizations in East Africa. Bethlehem has solid experience in programme management, strategic campaigning and advocacy and policy analysis. Her educational background is in Law and Sociology and is currently working at WaterAid as Regional Advocacy Manager for East Africa and Acting Country Representative for WaterAid in Ethiopia.

Menka Sanghvi is an innovation researcher and facilitator focusing on global health and wellbeing. At the Humanitarian Innovation Fund she leads a dedicated fund to improve water, sanitation and hygiene conditions for vulnerable communities. In her role she supports a wide range of project teams in building ideas, testing them out, and scaling to achieve better impact. Menka brings over a decade of experience in delivering innovation projects with organisations such as Oxfam, Unilever, Barclays Bank, Impact Hub, and with local communities. She serves as a mentor for the Global Sustainability Jam, and a judge for the UNDP Equator Prize.

Sarah Mosses is CEO of Together Films, a new consultancy working with social issue film content to reach new audiences. She helps filmmakers craft Impact Distribution Campaigns to increase both their social impact, audience reach and revenue potential. As an award winning Producer, Sarah’s debut feature documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First had its World Premiere at SXSW 2015 and European Premiere at London Film Festival 2015. Sarah is a mentor for Documentary Campus, Eso Doc, Sheffield DocFest, On Screen Manitoba, working with emerging producers to enhance their film narrative and distribution/marketing potential.

David Ofield, the renowned picture editor of the Evening Standard, brings to life the paper’s extraordinary photo archive, which contains some 7 million images. Ofield will be joining us to discuss how some of the Evening Standard‘s most iconic front pages have been constructed – from the story of the moon landing in 1969 to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Chaired by Francis Hodgson, professor in the Culture of Photography at the University of Brighton.

Over the course of a year, Emmy Award-winning director Mani Yassir Benchelah made This is Exile: Diaries of Child Refugees

An intimate portrait of Syrian refugee children forced to flee from the violence of civil war to neighbouring Lebanon.

Funded by friends of Save the Children, the film tells the moving truth of how these child refugees deal with loss, hardship and dashed hopes.

Following the screening filmmaker Julia Kirby Smith moderated the conversation.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Mohammed Naqvi and producer Jonathan Goodman Levitt.

Charismatic cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi, an ISIS supporter and Taliban ally, is waging jihad against the Pakistani state. His dream is to impose a strict version of Sharia law throughout the country, as a model for the world. A flashpoint in Aziz’s holy war took place in 2007, when the government leveled his flagship mosque to the ground, killing his mother, brother, only son and 150 students. With unprecedented access, Among the Believers follows Aziz on his very personal quest to create an Islamic utopia, during the bloodiest period in Pakistan’s modern history.

The film also follows the lives of two teenage students who have attended madrassahs (Islamic seminaries) run by Aziz’s Red Mosque network. Throughout the film, their paths diverge: Talha, 12, detaches from his moderate Muslim family and decides to become a jihadi preacher. Zarina, also 12, escapes her madrassah and joins a regular school. Over the next few years, Zarina’s education is threatened by frequent Taliban attacks on schools like her own.

Aziz’s foil is nuclear physicist and leading educational activist Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy. He passionately opposes Aziz through his public appearances, lectures, and in the media. Opposition to Aziz comes to a head in December 2014, when Aziz insults a grieving nation by trying to justify the brutal massacre of 132 school children in Peshawar by the Taliban. The attack ignites a movement to end extremism in Pakistan’s mosques and madrassahs. Led by Hoodbhoy and others, Pakistan’s moderate majority focuses on Aziz and calls for his arrest.

Intimate and shocking, Among the Believers offers rare insights into the ideological battles shaping Pakistan and the Muslim world.

Acclaimed journalist and artist Molly Crabapple has drawn and reported on stories from Guantanamo Bay, Syria, the West Bank, Iraqi Kurdistan and across the United States. With her powerful illustrations she has pushed the boundaries of visual reportage – and established an important place for art in hard news.

She spoke at the Frontline Club with writer and friend Natasha Lenard about censorship, pain, the subversive power of drawing and Donald Trump.

Before speaking infront of a packed audience at the Frontline Club Molly Crabapple, an American artist, activist and writer talked to journalist and Frontline Club blogger Heenali Patel. They discussed her work on Syria, and what it is to be human.