Front Row - 16/10/2009

A new cinema documentary The Cove attempts to penetrate a secret hidden cove in Japan where, for six months every year, thousands of dolphins are herded in and trapped before being slaughtered. The wildlife photographer and the film's director, Louie Psihoyos, discusses the risks he and his team took and the secrets they discovered. In a grand building that was formerly the home of the Sierra Leonean Embassy, a multi-disciplinary group has created an exhibition which explores the fragility of democracy. The Embassy exhibition includes a genuine ballot box from Texas containing some of the infamous hanging-chads, a presidential palace made from mud and a specially-commissioned national anthem for a badly-run nation. Kirsty Lang speaks to curator Alex Dellal. Jacqueline Springer reviews two new albums. Whitney Houston's first album for seven years, I Look to You, is released on the same day as last year's X-Factor winner, Alexandra Burke's debut Overcome. When film director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire decided to make a film about child soldiers in Africa, he flew to Liberia with his camera to cast real ex-child soldiers as his actors, whom he then lived with for over a year. The resulting film, Johnny Mad Dog, based on the novel by Emmanuel Dongola, is a graphic and violent depiction of loss of innocence. Sauvaire discusses the impact he hopes the film will have and how he turned his young cast from soldiers into actors.