DAUK Film Night: Inside the Obama White House

This Event is SOLD OUT. Many thanks for your interest, and we hope to see you at the next film event.

The Film Committee invites you to an exclusive preview screening of Inside Obama’s White House, Episode 4 – The Arc of History followed by the opportunity to discuss the series with this Brook-Lapping team of highly acclaimed, award-winning documentary filmmakers.

This new four-part BBC 2 series launches on 15 March and comes from the Brook Lapping team which produced multi award-winning documentary series, such as Watergate, The Death of Yugoslavia, and Iran and the West.

With unique access to President Obama’s inner circle, the series takes the viewer inside the room where the big decisions were made.

This fourth and final episode of the series covers the hunt for Bin Laden, the campaign for re-election in 2012 and key domestic events and issues in that second term - including Sandy Hook and guns, immigration reform, and race and criminal justice, including Ferguson and its aftermath.

The first three episodes deal with how to stop an economic crisis from turning into a Great Depression, closing Guantanamo, prioritising the President’s dream of universal healthcare, how to promote democracy as the Arab Spring engulfs the Middle East - and how to handle an Iran with nuclear capacity.

From Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, Bill Daley, Jim Messina, John Kerry, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, Kathleen Sebelius, Cecilia Muñoz, Phil Schiliro and many others we gain distinctive insights into the key events, issues and decision-making process

In this critical election year, this event gives us the space to reflect upon the achievements of the Obama administration and the obstacles he faced.

When his staff were discouraged by setbacks, Obama told them: "The arc of history is long and this is going to happen. What you did today is part of the journey that’s going to get us there." This is a message that should also inspire us in our 2016 campaign!

For more information about the film and the issues it covers go to http://www.daukpan.org.uk/FilmObamaWhiteHouse

DAUK Film Night
Date: Thursday, March 24 , 2015
Time: 7:00 – 9:30 PM
Place London School of Economics, Room CLM.6.02 , Clement House 99 AldwychWC2B 4JF

Map http://www.lse.ac.uk/mapsAndDirections/campusMap.pdf

Schedule:
6:30 PM Doors open
7:00 PM Introduction and welcome -
7:05 PM Inside Obama’s White House, Episode 4 – The Arc of History (60 minutes) -
8:10 PM Q and A with the Brook Lapping team, Norma Percy, Series Producer, Paul Mitchell, Executive Producer and Mick Gold, Producer/Director Episode 4.

9: 15 Discussion ends

Take this opportunity to meet and discuss with some of the most eminent political documentary filmmakers now working in the USA and UK.

The Brook Lapping team

Norma Percy, Series Producer

New York-born Norma Percy has been series producer of all the Brook Lapping histories which the 1995 BBC policy statement described as ‘virtually a new genre of documentary’ that retells momentous events from the recent past with meticulous objectivity and with the principal actors recording their version of what happened.

A Guardian editorial, ‘In Praise of Norma Percy’ (February 2009) wrote: “Her documentaries stand out... most of all for the extraordinary range of people who agree to appear on them... Every significant international story seems to have its Percy film." The 2nd Russian Revolution followed the fall of the Soviet Union. The Death of Yugoslavia traced the causes and consequences of the Balkan wars [followed by The Fall of Milosevic]. Two series, Elusive Peace and The 50 Years War, looked at the Israeli-Arab conflict, and the peace process that, ultimately, never succeeded. While Endgame in Irelandanalysed how a conflict was resolved. Recent series include Iran & the West; Putin Russia & the West and The Iraq War.

Paul Mitchell, Executive Producer

Born in Boston Mass, Paul Mitchell has lived in the UK for 25 years producing award-winning films for the BBC, UK Channel 4, PBS, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and France Télévision. He has been responsible with Norma Percy and the company’s founder, Brian Lapping, for many of Brook Lapping’s award winning histories including The Death of Yugoslavia (BBC/Discovery, 1995) which won 16 awards, including a BAFTA, and is listed as one of the British Film Institute’s top 100 greatest British television programs of any genre ever to have been screened. Others are The Second Russian Revolution, Watergate, Iran & the West, Putin Russia & the West and The Iraq War. His most recent project Russia’s Open Book: Writing under Putin, on modern Russian fiction, broadcast on PBS last year.

He has also made programs as diverse as the award winning A Marriage of Poweron the Clinton Presidency, The Alternative Rock & Roll Yearsabout rock and roll in the USSR, and he was one of very few Western journalists to cover the frontline in the Chechen war with a PBS WideAngle: Greetings from Grozny (winner of the Edward R Murrow Award, the FIPA Prix de Jury de 15 ans, The Rory Peck Freelance Award). How Putin Came to Powerwas short listed for an international EMMY in 2003.

Mick Gold, Producer/Director –Episode 4: The Arc of History

Mick Gold was director of the Brook Lapping series Watergate, working alongside Norma Percy and Paul Mitchell, which won an Emmy and a DuPont Award. He was also a producer/director on the Brook Lapping series Endgame In Ireland (Peabody Award),Death of Apartheid( US title: Mandela's Fight For Freedom)The Reagan Legacy, and Hostage (about the hostage crisis in Lebanon from 1984 to 1991).

He has also produced a variety of arts documentaries including six films for the BBC2 series Private Life of a Masterpiece. He directed four films for the Channel 4 series Dispatches, presented by Andrew Rawnsley, on politics behind the scenes in Westminster. He was series producer/director of Blues America, a two part history of the blues, broadcast by BBC4 in 2013.

Chairing the Discussion

Bill Barnard

Bill Barnard is a historian and has been a very active Democrat in both Alabama and the UK. He has attended five Democratic conventions (including Chicago in 1968), two as a member of the anti-Wallace faction of the Alabama state delegation, three as a commentator for the state-wide PBS network; he also attended two Republican conventions as a PBS commentator.

Since coming to the UK, he has served as Chair of Democrats Abroad from 2007 to 2011, was a founding member of the Oxford chapter of DAUK and is a long-standing member of the Executive Committee; he is a DAUK representative on the DPCA (Democrats Abroad International) and has served as DPCA Treasurer. His academic career included serving as Chair of the Department of History at the University of Alabama and in various academic policy leadership roles within the University of Alabama system and with professional associations of historians. He is the author of Dixiecrats and Democrats (1974).

Special notices:

In compliance with US campaign and party funding laws, we can only accept payments from US citizens and green card holders. Non-US citizens are very welcome to attend, but only as guests of US citizens who must book and pay for—as a gift—their guests' admission. By booking and paying for tickets for this event, you are confirming that you are a US citizen or green card holder. You must tick a box affirming this before completing your purchase.

If you are unable for any reason to book online using this website, please email us with your request. Advance bookings will only be taken until 13:00 on the day of the screening. Tickets are also available on the door, unless sold out.

This event is CLOSED to the press.