Comrade Tambo's London Recruits

12A

"Winner of Best Documentary at the Johannesburg Film Festival 2024 COMRADE TAMBO'S LONDON RECRUITS unfolds, after decades of secrecy, a nail biting journey of espionage with those who risked it all in taking on one of the 20th century’s most feared and brutal regimes.

By the late 1960s, the Apartheid regime in South Africa had reached brutal new heights. Nelson Mandela and other freedom fighters had been imprisoned, killed or forced into exile. The African National Congress (ANC) was outlawed and broken, from the leadership through to the township cells. In efforts to reinvigorate support for the liberation struggle, exiled ANC leader Oliver Tambo lit the fuse on a plan that saw young British women and men undertake missions on the ground in South Africa disguised as honeymooners, holiday makers and business trippers.

The film features interviews from surviving ‘London Recruits’ and freedom fighters who recount their courageous and intriguing stories of espionage and danger to create, what Variety called 'an edge of your seat thriller’ with ‘jaw dropping twists’.

There will be a live Q&A with director Gordon Main and one of the London Recruits after this screening.