Full Coverage: Information & media

14.11.2009 New currents in narrative forms are the special focus of the London African Film Festival 2009: "We are showcasing debuts by a wide range of dynamic, young film-making talent and the most creative of TV/film practitioners to celebrate the energy that young Africans from all corners of the continent have brought to drama as they embrace the digital age."

11.11.2009 As Index on Censorship and English Pen launch Free Speech is Not For Sale, a damning report on English libel laws, John Kampfner highlights the pressing need for reform.

09.11.2009 iceandfire has joined forces with the Wellcome Trust to explore the links between human rights and the hotly contested MMR debate, posing the question, ‘What duties does an individual have to their community?’

06.11.2009 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown jhas been asked to undertake an investigation into the death of Afghan journalist Sultan Munadi, the New York Times reporter killed during a British military operation that rescued reporter Stephen Farrell from Taliban captors.

05.11.2009 An MP calls on Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg to take part in a televised debate on climate change that all national TV stations must broadcast.

28.10.2009 A president says that Western nations should not use the word dictator or criticise African states about human rights as that was neo-colonialist... radio stations closed in Uganda... the Indian media is accused of ingoring environmental issues... Tamil writer’s 20-year sentence condemned... two journalists murdered... - the latest Commonwealth Journalists Association newsletter shows the pressure faced by journalists around the world, day in and day out.

27.10.2009 More and more campaign groups are using films to promote their causes, and many documentaries have broken out of their specialist markets and into the mainstream. Now a report, Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work, has put the spotlight on the ethics of the filmmakers.

25.10.2009 The 3rd Native Spirit Festival is a season of films, talks and performances promoting the Cultures of Indigenous people.

23.10.2009 For many Western campaigners, the collapse of apartheid was a highlight – perhaps the highlight - of their political lives. “Separate development” was so disgusting and the enemy so obdurate that success was particularly sweet.

16.10.2009 When campaigners despair of success they need only recall the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa to renew their belief and optimism. But as the Behind the Rainbow declares at the end of the documentary, “South Africa is no longer the world’s greatest fairytale.”

16.10.2009 A former South African army captain who moved to Rhodesia in 1974 and is now one of Zimbabwe’s last white farmers, Michael Campbell is not the obvious choice as the sympathetic subject of a documentary.

14.10.2009 Some fascinating documentaries feature in the Russian Film Festival, including a profile of the Dalai Lama and six films capturing the surreal side of the Russian provinces and providing a window into contemporary life beyond Moscow.

24.09.2009 Five provocative short films on the themes of War + Peace, Gender + Power and HIV + Stigma will be screened on 7 October by Ctrl.Alt.Shift, the experimental youth initiative politicising a new generation of activists for social justice.

07.09.2009 It's said to be the most reproduced image in the history of photography, and it makes an excellent documentary, says Daniel Nelson.

04.09.2009 Eight filmmaking teams out of 100 applications have been selected to pitch their films and outreach campaigns to an invited audience in London next week, in order to amplify the impact of their social-issue documentary projects.

29.07.2009 It’s certainly a good idea: 56 years after the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth’s six-month, 45,000 mile royal tour – still the most ambitious ever undertaken – Kwame Kwei-Armah retraces her journey to see what it meant, then and now. The question is: does On Tour With The Queen make good TV?

08.07.2009 Taking Liberties chronicles New Labour'’s destruction of civil liberties. Yes, it’s a polemic, and No, there’s little that’s revelatory. There are one or two Michael Moore moments, but although it’s fast-moving and entertaining, for the most part it uses actual footage and talking heads to make its case.

05.07.2009 Sandra Laing was black, born to white parents in apartheid South Africa. She is raised as white but while at school she was reclassified as "Coloured" and expelled. Her shocked father fights through the courts to have the classification reversed. He wins and Sandra is reclassified white. That’s a good start to a story. But there’s more to come in Skin.

04.07.2009 The nationwide UK "saffron premiere" of Burma VJ, a documentary about the courageous young citizens who kept up the flow of news during a period of protest and repression in 2007, is on 14 July.

12.03.2009 Il Divo is a brilliant film – but I am unsure how widely I can recommend it, says Daniel Nelson.