Afghanistan
Screening: Opium Brides + Q&A
Afghanistan produces around 90 percent of the world’s opium, fueling the global heroin trade, funding fundamentalist groups like the Taliban and bringing billions of dollars a year into the country’s economy. Award-winning Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi travels deep into the Afghan countryside to reveal the deadly bargain local farmers are being forced to make in order to save their own lives. The screening is followed by a Q&A with reporter Najibullah Quraishi and producer Jamie Doran.
Panorama Preview Screening: Mission Accomplished? The secrets of Helmand
Soon, Afghan security forces will be in control of all of Afghanistan, as ISAF forces accelerate their withdrawal. This lastest film for BBC Panorama raises questions about the British legacy in Sangin and the transition to Afghan control. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with director Ben Anderson; Dawood Azami, former BBC World Service Bureau Chief and Editor in Kabul, Afghanistan; and Will Pike who served as a British Army Major in Afghanistan.
The future of British military engagement with the media
In light of more than ten years of conflict overseas, we examine the nature of the engagement between the British military and the media. As we see changes in the British military, the media, and the nature of conflict zones, how will this relationship develop?
The World Next Year (Part II)
By Jasper Wenban-Smith, international editor of ForesightNews. A special round up of world events from July – December 2013, from journalist resource ForesightNews.
FULLY BOOKED On the frontline: Refocusing on Afghanistan
October this year will mark 12 years since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and with the 2014 deadline looming join us with author and award winning journalist Christina Lamb, Afghan American author Tamim Ansary and others, as we look ahead at the path to troop withdrawal.
Voice of Afghanistan: Screening and Q&A with Jawed Taiman
By Jim Treadway “The life we had. The flowers, the trees,” an elder Afghan recalls about the village in which he has lived, and where director Jawed Taiman grew up before his family fled the Soviet invasion in 1979. “Just look at it now,” the man gestures. “It’s completely dry.” This conversation opens Taiman’s latest […]
Addicted in Afghanistan: Beautiful and bleak
By Merryn Johnson Jawed Taiman‘s award winning film, Addicted in Afghanistan, which screened at Frontline on 13 September, is beautiful and utterly bleak. The documentary follows the lives of two young boys, best friends Zahir and Jabar, through the streets of Kabul. The film moves between their sober, childish hilarity and the painful grips of […]
Screening: Addicted in Afghanistan + Q&A
This award-winning documentary tells the story of two addicted teenage boys living in Afghanistan and how their lives and those of their families have been ravaged by drugs. Director Jawed Taiman not only shows the vicious cycle of addiction, the devastating effect of drugs on everyday family life, and the distressing lack of life prospects, but also captures the remarkable friendship between the boys.
Vaughan Smith packing for Afghanistan
As Frontline Club founder and independent video journalist Vaughan Smith prepares to embed with the Grenadier Guards in Afghanistan he talks through what he will be taking with him and why.
Club Classics: Restrepo
Opt for our £15 special offer for both the screening and a classic from our clubroom menu, 6pm onwards.
In the most dangerous place in Afghanistan, the violently contested Korengal Valley, a platoon of fifteen American soldiers fight a seemingly endless war against an Al-Qaeda stronghold. Told through the voices of the soldiers themselves, Restrepo takes the viewer on a harrowing journey through the lives of the men serving abroad without the interjection of the vox populi usually heard on the news.
Club Classics: Out of the Ashes
Opt for our £15 special offer for both the screening and a classic from our clubroom menu, 6pm onwards.
An inspirational documentary following the extraordinary quest of the Afghan cricket team to qualify for the 2011 World Cup. Against a backdrop of war and poverty, Out of the Ashes, traces the remarkable journey of a team of young Afghans as they chase a seemingly impossible dream – shedding new light on a nation beyond burqas, bombs, drugs and devastation.
Screening: Addicted in Afghanistan + Q&A
This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Jawed Taiman. Well known as one of the world’s leading producers of heroin, Afghanistan has over a million drug addicts, many of them children. This award-winning documentary tells the timeless story of two addicted teenagers, 15-year-old Jabar and 14-year-old Zahir and how their families have […]
Who can prevent an Afghan civil war?
Posted by Nigel Wilson In a week that’s seen three “green on blue” attacks in Afghanistan, a divided panel came together to unpick the finer details of the country’s impending challenges. With foreign troops preparing to leave in 2014, the spectre looming over Afghanistan is a return to civil war. The expert panel debated whether […]
Can the Afghan National Army prevent civil war?
Chatham House rule applies to this event.
In 2014 America’s longest war will be over but what will become of the Afghan people? Join us as we ask whether the Afghan National Army can to keep the country from civil war or whether it is destined to see a similar scenario to what followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.
Afghan Army Girls: Q&A with first-time director Lalage Snow
The screening of Afghan Army girls ended with a roaring sound of applause at the Frontline Club yesterday evening.
FULLY BOOKED Screening: Afghan Army Girls
For the first time in post-Taliban Afghanistan the national army is recruiting women, but only very few have stepped forward for training. In Afghan Army Girls, photojournalist and first-time director Lalage Snow reveals the difficulties, threats and personal changes these women go through as well as the complicated status they have in Afghan society. Followed by Q&A with director Lalage Snow.
Insight with Ahmed Rashid – Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan
By Emily Wight View event here. Download this episode View in iTunes The end of this month will see the anniversary of Osama Bin-Laden’s death, which exposed the escalating tensions between the United States and Pakistan. Topically, the celebrated writer and central Asia expert Ahmed Rashid joined BBC special correspondent Lyce Doucet in conversation to discuss his […]
FULLY BOOKED Insight with Ahmed Rashid – Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan
As we approach the one year anniversary of the death of Osama Bin Laden, Ahmed Rashid will be joining senior BBC presenter and special correspondent Lyse Doucet to discuss the future for Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States.
Taliban take questions using online forum
Reuters is reporting that the Taliban have started answering queries submitted to an online forum on their website. Questions have been asked on topics ranging from the Taliban’s negotiations with the United States to their position on educating girls. The Taliban banned girls from schools while they were in power, although there were reports in […]
The Trouble With Girls – raising daughters as sons in Afghanistan
By Ivana Davidovic “Why do we need to give a girl a boy’s face to give her freedom?” That is the question asked by Azita Rafhat, a former member of the Afghan parliament, who opted for a radical decision to raise one of her four daughters as a boy, having succumbed to the still prevailing […]
THIRD PARTY SCREENING: The Trouble with Girls
There’s a long tradition in Afghanistan of families with no sons choosing to bring up one of their daughters as a boy. For the girls this means growing up dressed in boy’s clothes, answering to a boy’s name and being allowed the freedoms and privileges Afghan boys enjoy both within the family and outside.
Tahir Qadiry’s film looks at the issue from a number of different perspectives. He spends time with a girl currently growing up as a boy, talks to a young woman who’s still coming to terms with her experience being raised as a boy, seeks the opinion of a mullah and hears from a human rights activist.
It’s the Military, Stupid
By Thomas Lowe ‘Memogate’, nuclear weapons, Bin Laden, Imran Khan, US foreign policy, Afghanistan – it seems that global issues are destined to pass through Pakistan. But it’s the vast military apparatus at the very centre of the state of Pakistan that took the attention of the Frontline panel – and demanded the mediation skills […]
Fawzia Koofi – from a baby left to die to running for president of Afghanistan
by Ivana Davidovic "If it was fiction, you would not believe it.” That is how Nadene Ghouri, a journalist and a writer, described Fawzia Koofi‘s remarkable life story told in her new memoir The Favored Daughter: One Woman’s Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future. The day Koofi was born, was the day she was […]
Insight with Fawzia Koofi: Running for president of Afghanistan
Fawzia Koofi has lived a life defined by struggle, the 19th of 23 children born, as a baby she was left in the sun to die because she was a girl. Now a Member of Parliament, she continues her struggle to improve women’s and children’s rights and plans to run for President of Afghanistan in 2014, despite death threats and assassination attempts.
Join us at the Frontline Club with Fawzia Koofi and the co-author of the book that tells her story The Favored Daughter: One Woman’s Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future, Nadene Ghouri, award-winning journalist and BBC correspondent.
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 13- 19 February
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 13 February to Sunday, 19 February from Foresight News By Nicole Hunt Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has been ordered to appear before the Supreme Court again on Monday, this time to be indicted on charges of contempt of court over what prosecutors say is […]
Social media from the front line
Major Paul Smyth is one of the people responsible for changing the Ministry of Defence’s approach to social media particularly in the context of front line operations. I’ve spoken to him previously for the Frontline Club about his Frontline bloggers project. In this interview with David Bailey, Maj. Smyth talks in some detail about how […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 30 January – 5 February
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 30 January to Sunday, 5 February from Foresight News By Nicole Hunt European leaders gather in Brussels on Monday for an informal meeting of the European Council, during which discussions are set to focus on jobs and the new fiscal stabilisation treaty agreed at their controversial […]
Tears of an Afghan Warlord
By Rosie Scammell After nearly a decade in the making, Tears of an Afghan Warlord had its UK premiere on Friday night, with director Pascale Bourgaux on hand to tell the story behind the screen. Bourgaux dedicated the evening to Frontline News Television cameraman James Miller, killed in 2003 while filming in Gaza, […]
UK Premiere Screening: Tears of an Afghan warlord
Tears of an Afghan Warlord is the product of an intimate 10 year journey into the life of Mamour Hasan and his desire to maintain peace in his region. After years of hardship and war it becomes increasingly difficult for him to convince others of his ideas, including his eldest son. The film portrays the desperate attempts of man to uphold democratic ideals where democracy has failed and the pressures and arguments Afghani’s have to join the Taliban.
Wadah Khanfar: ‘No one will be spared by the Arab Spring’
The Arab Spring “is not going to spare anyone” not even Saudi Arabia, warned the former head of the Al Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar, last night. “We are going to see people resisting change but it will be a major mistake that will cause a lot of problems if countries see the Arab Spring as a conspiracy,” […]