Endgame

An epic political thriller revealing the true story of the secret talks that helped to end apartheid, and the brave individuals who risked everything to make them happen.

South Africa, 1985. The country is under siege. Sanctions are biting, Mandela's imprisonment is an international cause celebre, and the ANC guerrilla terrorist attacks are escalating. Every day the country is more ungovernable as it plunges towards the apocalypse of a race war. In their saner moments everyone knows the vile apartheid regime is doomed, but will the transition to democracy be peaceful or bloody?

Working for P.W. Botha as a Machiavellian Head of Intelligence, Doctor Neil Barnard opens furtive talks with the imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Today, these talks are well documented. Less known are the secret talks that took place in the unlikely setting of a rural English manor house ¿ talks that paved the way for the transition of power and the dismantling of apartheid.

The UK talks are arranged by a British businessman, Michael Young who is working for a mining company that is seeking to secure its future by ensuring stability in South Africa. At the mining company's Somerset country house, influential Afrikaner, Professor Esterhuyse sits down face to face with his fiercest enemies from the ANC, led by future President Thabo Mbeki. Both sides have everything to win and everything to lose, including their own lives. The stakes are immense, the secrecy total.

But Botha knows of the UK talks too. If the demise of apartheid is inevitable he intends to control the endgame by employing the tactics of divide and rule. Dr Barnard must wring as many concessions out of Mandela as he can whilst instructing the Afrikaners to do the same with the ANC in the UK ¿ then play one off against the other.

The UK talks are inter-cut with Mandela's tense negotiations at Pollsmoor Prison and later in the heavily bugged warden's villa at Victor Verster Prison. Showing Mandela's courage, this film also shows for first time the courage of the unsung heroes at the crucial UK talks.

Against all the odds, through volatile discussion, setbacks and breakthroughs, the secret talks achieve the unimaginable - a precious arena of frail trust between the two warring parties.

Sometimes peace can only be achieved away from the radar of public scrutiny. A decade later when the IRA decided to negotiate a peaceful solution to the Irish conflict they secretly turned to the ANC for advice on how to do it. It is believed that the IRA is now in secret talks advising Hamas on the same strategy. In the climate we all now live in, this inspiring film has never had more relevance.