Corrie film club in March
The film showing on Sunday 9th March will be London Recruits (Gordon Main 2024 Cert. 12(A)) – followed by Q&A with the director – at Corrie and Sannox Village hall, starting at 7pm.
The recently released film London Recruits, is a potent mix of never before seen archive footage, action packed drama and candid testimony from the recruits, eyewitnesses and secret police from the height of apartheid in South Africa in the late sixties/ early seventies.
At that time, an international group of working-class students and workers living in London answered Oliver Tambo’s (at that time the Deputy President of the ANC sent to London to further the cause) secret call for undercover agents.
This film tells the story of young men and women who undertook clandestine missions for the ANC and Tambo’s daring, non violent strategy to bring hope to his embattled people in South Africa. Kept secret for over 40 years, their part in the long struggle for freedom can finally be told.
Their story is quite remarkable and heroic – admiration for them is seen in this quotation from Maya Pillay, the daughter of an activist who had to flee to Britain. She says:
For my dad and many South Africans it felt as if they had no choice. South Africa was their country, they had to fight for it. There is something, to me, particularly impressive about young British men and women who were willing to risk it all for a country that was not theirs, it’s an act of unity and solidarity – people willing to stand up against the status quo, whether it be directly going to South Africa to carry out secret missions, protestors in Swansea storming the rugby pitch to show their disdain for the exclusively white Springboks playing in the UK, or those who tirelessly argued with friends and loved ones that apartheid was evil.
After the film screening, the director and one of the recruits will be there to talk about his experiences and lead a Q and A session after the film.
Free entry (but donations to hall welcome) refreshments available.
Featured image shows logo from London Recruits Facebook page
