M-Net screens award-winning local documentary

The documentary won the Jameson Audience Award for Best South African Documentary at the Encounters Documentary Film Festival earlier this year and will be screened on M-Net on Monday, 24 September at 3pm. There will also be a repeat on M-Net on Thursday, 27 September at 10.45pm.

M-Net's head of Original Productions, Carl Fischer, says that M-Net commissioned this documentary because it was an important story to tell. “The value of Bram Fischer's contribution to our country is undeniable. M-Net prides itself on making only the best local content and we are sure that viewers will be gripped by this captivating documentary.”

Bram Fischer led the defence at the Rivonia Trial, saving Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and other trialists from execution, a fact that many South Africans are not aware of. When all his comrades were jailed or exiled, Bram Fischer took a defiant solitary stand, living in disguise as apartheid's most wanted man until his capture and sentence to life imprisonment in 1966.

Director Sharon Farr tells of her inspiration to make this film: “I decided that I needed to make this documentary when, towards the end of 2004, the debate was raging about whether Stellenbosch University should award Bram an Honorary Doctorate. Despite the controversy around the Stellenbosch debate, one message remained obvious, says Farr. “Time and again, during our research, the message of Bram's life was clear – throughout his life he was motivated by a genuine care for people, as individuals, and for their freedom and rights as human beings.”

Family, comrades, colleagues and friends, including Nelson Mandela, Denis Goldberg, Ahmed Kathrada, George Bizos, Arthur Chaskalson, Blade Nzimande, Hilda Bernstein, Hugh Lewin and renowned writers Nadine Gordimer and Martin Meredith, tell this personal and moving story of courage, conviction and an unswerving vision of a non-racial South Africa.