SA to the World!
The 27-year-old Harry Potter star will head to Mzansi in 2018 to begin the filming of the movie, which is based on Tim’s autobiography Inside Out: Escape from Pretoria Prison.
The breakout thriller tells the story of how Tim escaped one of the maximum prisons in South Africa using a device made from a broom handle and a mirror he had hidden in his cell.
It narrates how he planned and executed the prison break where he freed himself and his prison mate Stephen Lee. Tim, who is now 68, had been arrested and sentenced to 12 years for handing out leaflets supporting the then banned African National Congress.
HDO reported that the film will be directed by Francis Annan and Daniel will play the lead role.
“I am very excited to work with the immensely talented Francis Annan on this astonishing true story. Political without being polemical.
“Escape From Pretoria is a rare combination of genre and drama and I am delighted to bring together the potent combination of Daniel Radcliffe and Francis Annan,” said producer David.
The European presence in South Africa dates back to the 17th century, when the Dutch East India Company established the Cape Colony outpost.
Over the next three centuries, Europeans, primarily of British and Dutch origin, would expand their presence in South Africa to pursue the land’s abundance of natural resources such as diamonds and gold. In 1910, whites founded the Union of South Africa, an independent arm of the British Empire that gave the white minority control of the country and disenfranchised blacks.
Although South Africa was majority black, the white minority passed a series of land acts that resulted in them occupying 80 to 90 percent of the country’s land. The 1913 Land Act unofficially launched apartheid by requiring the black population to live on reserves.
The South African economy took a significant hit in 1986 when the United States and Great Britain imposed sanctions on the country because of its practice of apartheid. Three years later F.W. de Klerk became president of South Africa and dismantled many of the laws that allowed apartheid to become the way of life in the country.
In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison after serving 27 years of a life sentence. The following year South African dignitaries repealed the remaining apartheid laws and worked to establish a multiracial government. De Klerk and Mandela won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their efforts to unify South Africa. That same year, South Africa’s black majority won rule of the country for the first time. In 1994, Mandela became South Africa’s first black president.
