In an act of international solidarity young people risked arrest and imprisonment in apartheid South Africa to carry out undercover missions for the African National Congress. For years they stayed silent about their mission. Now a new film, London Recruits, tells their story. SIMON SAPPER explains plans for a ‘People’s Release’ of the film.
London Recruits is a new movie that is part drama, part documentary and part thriller. It tells the story of young men and women who went to apartheid South Africa in the early 1970s, at the request of the then-banned and heavily supressed African National Congress.
Their mission? To show the racist, fascist government and also those under the cosh of the regime that national liberation was possible and resistance was alive.
The film’s writer and director Gordon Main took on a 10-year journey from when he first heard the story, raising the cash to take the idea forward, filming in South Africa, right through to opening the Johannesburg Film Festival earlier this year – and unexpectedly walking away with the award for Best Documentary.
Now the next target is to make the film the most successful independent movie in UK film history by having it shown on more screens than any film ever before.
In what has been termed a “Peoples’ Release”, the target is to get 200 independent cinemas to show the film. If you want to support the Recruits’ record breaking attempt, use this link and to be among the first to know where and when you can see the film, sign up here.
To find out more about the film, visit the London Recruits website. You might also want to look up the written accounts of the London Recruits themselves, all young students with no visible record of political activity, collected by Ken Keable. And there is an in-depth interview with Gordon on my UnionDues podcast – you can access that here
The project is already supported by the General Federation of Trade Unions, the Morning Star and Southern Africa solidarity group ACTSA. And of course, the archives of the UK Anti-Apartheid Movement are invaluable for those wanting to know more about the struggle and solidarity, and there is a bespoke resource pack there about the Recruits.
There is more information about Oliver Tambo here, and the history of the ANC is here.