In the climate of the "war on terror" we all now live in, this inspiring film has never had more relevance.
A gripping and sophisticated political thriller in which a British businessman initiates secret talks between the outlawed, terrorist-labelled ANC and white intellectuals to try and find a peaceful solution to the brutal conflict in South Africa.  A deadly behind-the-scenes game of cat and mouse ensues.
This is an epic political thriller full of unexpected heroes.
South Africa, 1985. The country is under siege. Sanctions are biting, Mandela's imprisonment is an international cause celebre, and the ANC guerrilla terrorist attacks are escalating. Every day the country is more ungovernable as it plunges towards the apocalypse of a race war. Think Battle of Algiers and you get a sense of the bitter mood in South Africa at that time.
In their saner moments everyone knows the vile apartheid regime is doomed but will the transition to democracy be peaceful or bloody?
Working for P.W. Botha as a somewhat Machiavellian Head of Intelligence, Doctor Neil Barnard opens furtive talks with Nelson Mandela who is still in prison. These talks have been well documented. Less known are the secret talks that take place in the unlikely setting of a rural English manor house.
The UK talks - arranged by a British businessman and sponsored by a mining company that although perceived as reactionary and rightwing is seeking to secure its future in South Africa - would see influential Afrikaners sit down face to face with their fiercest enemies from the ANC, led by future President Thabo Mbeki.
Both sides have everything to win and everything to lose, including their own lives. The stakes are immense, the secrecy total.
But Botha knows of the UK talks too.  If the demise of apartheid is inevitable he intends to control the endgame by employing the tactics of divide and rule. Dr Barnard must wring as many concessions out of Mandela as he can whilst instructing the Afrikaners to do the same with the ANC in the UK - then play one off against the other.
Against all the odds, through volatile discussion, set backs and breakthroughs, the secret talks achieve the unimaginable - a precious arena of frail trust between the two warring parties.
Meanwhile the UK talks are inter-cut with Mandela's tense negotiations at Pollsmoor Prison and later in the heavily bugged warden's villa at Victor Verster Prison.  Showing Mandela's courage, this film also shows for first time the courage of the unsung heroes at the crucial UK talks. Would they ever live to see the peace they were striving so hard for?
Sometimes peace can only be achieved away from the radar of public scrutiny. A decade later when the IRA decided to negotiate a peaceful solution to the Irish conflict they secretly turned to the ANC for advice on how to do it. It is believed that the IRA is now in secret talks advising Hamas on the same strategy.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
The origins of Endgame are almost as extraordinary as the subject matter it tackles.  By chance, the film's producer David Aukin was introduced to British businessman Michael Young some years ago, who at the time was the Director of Communications for Consolidated Goldfield, a company regarded at the time as one of the world's powerful mining companies in South Africa. Aukin suggests that many assumed that the company had a vested interest in the support of a regime that was becoming increasingly unpalatable to the outside world - Apartheid.
At first glance, the notion of orchestrating talks to instigate 'real' talks seems a bizarre reason for a company such as Consolidated to pursue, not only for economic reasons, but also for the security of its employees in what was a violent and bloody time in South Africa's history.  Aukin believes that the company's repugnance of the regime and their understanding that in the future there would inexorably be a change in the political landscape led them to organise one of the most important series of meetings of the 20th century.
"They didn't negotiate as such," says Aukin.  "But there were talks about having talks, which led finally to the release of Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of the apartheid regime.  It was a peaceful transition that I think surprised and delighted the world at the time.
"What is so extraordinary," continues Aukin, "is that the initial talks happened, of all places, in the Complete Angler pub near Reading.  What was more incongruous was that in an English country pub, members of the ANC, who were considered terrorists and guerrillas, would sit down and talk to members of the Afrikaner community in the hope of finding a way to begin a resolution. But that's what happened and over the next four or five years, there were something like twelve meetings between these people and in the end they became very friendly.  The company's chairman and Young realised that it was in the long term business interests of Consolidated Goldfield that there should be a peaceful transition from the current regime to black majority rule within the country."
On reading the book by Robert Harvey - "The Fall of Apartheid", which was based on a collection of transcripts from these secret meetings, and his encounter with Young, Aukin realised the potential for this untold story to be transformed into an important and engaging film.  He then set out to pursue the writer he felt could craft the bones of the story into a feature-length film, Paula Milne.
"David Aukin approached me and asked me if I would write it," says Milne, "the hardest decision was to work out what not to include in the script.  The book is essentially educational in many respects - the history of Apartheid and the Afrikaner perspective.  So that was the kicking off point.  But the essence of the film is Botha attempting to utilise two sets of talks against each other -one with Nelson Mandela during his incarceration, and then with the secret UK talks."
The difficulty for Milne was in including Mandela in the piece, but not to have his presence detract from Young's extraordinary achievement.  "As soon as you put Nelson Mandela into a screenplay, into a film, because of the love and affection he is held in, automatically the audience think that's what it's going to be about," says Milne.  "So the trick was to try and orchestrate a dramatic strategy where you understood that although he's featured, it is not absolutely about him. It's about these other talks and about the processes that were happening behind the scenes.
"I felt one of the best ways of going into it was to apply genre to it as a 'political thriller', and as a sort of template perhaps, in tone, of a movie like The Insider; an intelligent thriller, which was very much about the politics.  I wanted the tension to come out of that and out of the characters.  But I think the other thing, too, was to make a decision about how closely based on the facts it would be.  To me, what was important was that it had to be rooted in fact."
Historically there were twelve talks in all, covering a time span of several years.  Milne's next task was to condense that down into a two-hour film, to maintain the tension and execute a storyline that would make sense to an audience coming to this subject for the very first time.
"I felt it was important to regard it as a story that was inspired by the talks rather than concentrate on every detail of the discussions.  These talks were not the formal negotiations about Apartheid, but they helped create a climate of trust.  I didn't want to write a piece that was a curiosity piece on history, a kind of sideshow, significant though it may be.  I wanted to write something which would be inspiring for the future, to show what potentially could be achieved if two sides, two enemies, can eschew bitterness and put that to one side and sit across a table from each another."
Aukin and Milne pitched the project to Channel 4.  By Aukin's account, Milne's pitch helped seal the deal in terms of moving the project rapidly forward.
We went in to Channel 4 one lunch time, Paula and me," Aukin recalls, "and Paula gave a non-stop, passionate presentation of the story, which was just thrilling to listen to.  At the end of the pitch, the executives asked her to go straight ahead and research it and write it.  I have to say that Channel 4 have been incredibly supportive throughout.  It's not the most obvious idea for a movie, but I think their judgement, we hope to prove right."
Head of Channel 4 Drama, Liza Marshall, agrees that the drama felt right for Channel 4 from the start: "Paula had an infectious passion for the story which resulted in a wonderful script. With Pete Travis on board, we attracted a really exciting line up of actors. Hal and David had just worked with Channel 4 on Peter Kosminsky's exceptional and multi-award winning two part-thriller Britz and as producers, they have a strong track record in delivering political Drama that feels gripping and relevant. I think audiences will be given a genuinely new take on the end of apartheid."
For producer Hal Vogel, there were three key problems facing them in trying to get the project off the ground - finding the right director, casting and being able to judge how big the film should be financially.  "It is about finding the right director because that dictates so much. It then has a bearing on the kind of cast that you can attract," he explains.  "And then that has a bearing on the kind of money you can attract.  At the beginning the script was probably more intimate, in the sense that it really was more focused on the talks.  When Pete (Travis) came on board, we began to really open it up and turn it into a thriller and look at the talks in context of the jeopardy that the main players were putting themselves in."
Milne then spent time in South Africa doing research and meeting key players in the piece including Thabo Mbeki and Professor Esterhuyse, although she stresses, it's an inspirational piece as opposed to a factual re-enactment.
"For me, I think, it's very important that the audience is fairly sure about what it is they're getting. When you say, "based on" there is an expectation that everything in there is true; that people did say what they said on the day they said it, in the place they said it, to the person to whom they said it.  That is rarely the case, even if it's "based on" because of perhaps compressing seven or eight years into a two hour film or, in this case, twelve meetings for example into a two hour film and so on.  "Inspired by" means you're able to have your cake and eat it.
"What has been achieved in this case and what is inspirational about it, is what actually governs the film isn't pretending that every single word is gospel.  I think it's particularly appropriate in this film because, when you think of what's happening in the Middle East, and we recall what has been achieved in Ireland, it does show that if people do get away from the spotlight and away from the public scrutiny, sit down and eschew bitterness, there is much that can be achieved.  Two enemies can sit across the table and make peace. And so "inspired by" is also intended to be kind of an 'aspirational' sense too."
Vogel explains what director Pete Travis initially brought to the project: "Omagh (Channel 4, 2004) is an extraordinary piece of work and I think the style that he used was very interesting.  He is also a political animal, which was very important to us.  We as a company generally make political films and it's very difficult to make a film of this nature with somebody who's not interested in politics.
When we had our first meeting, the material was interesting to him and he was able to respond to it intelligently.  On the one hand, I think we, all struggled with the fact that we are probably all "Guardian readers."  We're all liberals.  The key was how to get out of the sentimentality we all felt towards the story and just turn it into something that was exciting and not at all sentimental. There is that danger that all of the characters in a piece dealing with these issues can be portrayed as overly well-intentioned.  That's not necessarily where good drama comes from.  Films about that era in South Africa have been wonderful films, but they haven't necessarily worked.  It's a well-littered path.  So avoiding that was very important to us.  Pete always made clear he wasn't going to indulge that aspect."
Milne had originally talked to Travis in May of 2007 when he was finishing the edit on Vantage Point.  They agreed that Milne would give the finished script to him for his response.  When he read it, Travis found the whole story extraordinary.
"It's one of the most beautiful scripts I've read for a long time and a very, very powerful story," says Travis.  "It's not very often that this kind of writing comes along. It's very precise and very kind of eloquently written. And most importantly, it's a story about now… As a filmmaker, you want to tell stories about people that have changed things and made things different."
Coming immediately from a large budget Hollywood studio movie offered Travis what he describes as "a breath of fresh air."  He was attracted to the size and scope of the piece as much as the story.  Moving from a production using a large crew and lengthy schedule to a tight shooting calendar and minimal crew was a challenge but equally an opportunity for Travis to approach the film in a more intimate way.  "It was a different kind of thing," he says, "but I loved it all the same.
Tackling a true story based on a mass of information and numerous viewpoints meant that for Travis, the job of consolidating this into a two hour thriller would require the appropriate duty of care.  "When you make stories about real things, the duty to the audience is to explain clearly what is the film about, what we're trying to say.  Ultimately, this is a film about men jumping off a cliff together into the abyss - trying to make hope work when there seems very little.  When it looked like South Africa could fall into a kind of bloody conflagration, I think it was extraordinary what was achieved in the talks."
Travis's approach was to heighten the tension to enable the audience to appreciate the risks these men were taking by coming together in this way. Vogel explains that, although there were only a handful of scenes that would lend themselves to any sort of real peril involving the characters, these moments needed to provide a sense of real life-threatening danger.
"We did have a very small scene that involved, I wouldn't call it a car chase but it was definitely two cars following each other," laughs Vogel.  "And in Pete's mind, quite rightly, as a filmmaker who had just made a big action movie for Hollywood, it really had to be a real car chase.  There had to be danger and it had to something that was ambitious and exciting.  From those few lines came something that became logistically complex to enable Pete to get that feeling across.
"Michael Young on the telephone, trying to coral members of the Afrikaner community to come to these talks, is not particularly exciting as it stands in the script but the way it's shot and the way that Pete approaches it offers a real sense of suspense. Pete's earlier film Omagh was a complicated film in terms of dealing with real people.  This was a very real story and he remained aware of that and never betrayed that trust.  That was a real baptism of fire for him and definitely one of the reasons why he was really interesting to us."
The story is one that many are unaware of and yet it has influenced an enormous number of people by its methodology and effectiveness.  Producer David Aukin is quick to point out that it's a story that shocks a lot of people when it's told.
"Not only people like us who are British and live over here, have not heard about it but most people in South Africa don't know about it.  I've actually spoken to most of the participants involved, including President Mbeki, and they absolutely confirm the truth of these talks."
At the same time as these talks were going on, the Afrikaans government was also talking to Mandela who was being held prisoner.  With little or no official communication possible between Mandela and the ANC or no clear lines of communication, secret messages were passed between the two.
"The Afrikaans were trying to play off one set of talks against the other, so it was quite a dangerous undertaking, what they were doing," Aukin explains. "The people who came to England for these talks were certainly, physically at risk.  Letter bombs were going off and things like that, all over the place.  So, they were brave men. All of them."
It is reported that, after the success of the talks were made public, the IRA contacted the ANC asking how they might achieve a similar rapport with the British.  "If you want peace and you want to negotiate peace," says Aukin, "it can't be done in the full glare of publicity.  It has to be done privately behind closed doors to enable people to build up trust and maybe they will find solutions."
One of the most powerful elements of the story for Travis is the coda at the end indicating that the IRA took lessons from the ANC about negotiating with the British.  "We believe the IRA is now advising Hamas about how to negotiate with the Israelis.  Yesterday's terrorist is tomorrow's Prime Minister," Travis notes.
When asked if this story is still controversial today, the team are keen to stress the contemporary thread running through the centre of the story that enables it to remain as relevant as ever.
"I don't think it's a particularly controversial film", says Travis.  "I think it's a very hopeful film.  It's about what can be done in the most extraordinary circumstances.
"This story today has huge political significance in terms of South African politics," Aukin adds.  "A lot of people will have their noses put out of joint, I suspect, when this story becomes more widespread.  It's very interesting. Of course, Mbeki himself is a major player in this story and it tells you why this man - who people in this country are now very critical of because of his attitude on HIV and his attitude on Zimbabwe is a figure of great ability and why he ended up President of South Africa.
"But over and above all that, it's about how you resolve political conflict in a peaceful way.  That's something that is relevant all the time sadly in this world.  You need a few good men with good intentions to be brave enough to come together and sit down round a table and talk.  You have to remember, it was a great shock when these men first encountered each other.  These were people who'd learned to hate each other without knowing each other.  How do you get beyond that?  Of course all these political situations are never finally resolved by force but by people talking."

PETE TRAVIS - Director
Pete Travis is a Manchester-born television and film director.  Inspired by Alan Clarke and Costa Gavras he took a post-graduate course in film-making.  He then bought the film rights to Nick Hornby's Faith, which premiered at the London Film Festival in 1997.  This led to directing work on the ITV series 'The Bill', 'Cold Feet' and 'The Jury'. In 2003 Travis directed Omagh a dramatisation of the Omagh bombing written by Guy Hibbert and Paul Greengrass.  The Channel 4/RTE film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2004 where it won the Discovery Award.  It also won a BAFTA Television Award for Best Single Drama.  Travis was nominated for the Irish Film and Television Award for Best Film Director. Travis' first studio film, Vantage Point, directed for Sony Pictures, was number 1 in the US box office on its opening weekend in February 2008.

PAULA MILNE - Writer
Paula Milne, one of Britain's leading screenwriters, left school when she was fifteen years old with no academic qualifications. She studied fine art at the Central School of Art and Design as well as filmmaking at the Royal College of Art.  She went on to write screenplays for movies and Television.
Among her original dramas is the critically lauded Die Kinder a six part political thriller for the BBC about the Baader Meinhoffs which starred Frederic Forrest and Miranda Richardson and her 9 hour feminist serial Driving Ambition and SWAL, a six part feminist serial for C4. Her many television films include A Sudden Wrench, John David, Queen of Hearts and CQ for Channel Four.  Her films for the BBC include Frankie And Johnnie directed by Martin Campbell, which was followed by her highly popular female detective series Chandler & Co.
In the late 1980's Paula was part of a cultural delegation, which visited Central America, in particular Nicaragua and Honduras. Later she spent time in the Brazilian rain forests researching a feature film Terra Roxa. Paula also went to Minnesota researching a feature film Blue Earth about Aids for the actor/producer Tom Hulce and writer Barrow Marrow.  She has extensively travelled the United States researching her other feature films.
For Channel Four Television in the UK she wrote the mini series The Politician's Wife, and The Fragile Heart, a powerful serial tackling medical ethics starring Nigel Hawthorne.Milne also created and wrote the mini-series Second Sight, and the films Mad Love, Hollow Reed., I Dreamed of Africa. and BoltFlash. Other Hollywood projects include her adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel for Fox 2000.  Her 4 x hr epic serial The Virgin Queen based on Elizabeth I for BBC 1 starred Ann Marie Duff and was transmitted internationally to critical acclaim.  It received an International Emmy nomination for outstanding Mini Series of 2006 and was nominated for a BAFTA.
A Hollywood film based on The Politician's Wife is currently in production starring Felicity Hoffman.  Production recently finished on Milne's TV film Whatever It Takes, a contemporary morality tale about our celebrity-obsessed culture, which is shortly due for transmission. She has also written and devised a long form contemporary crime series for the BBC entitled The Insiders and recently completed 2x90 minute mini serial The Bounty for BBC/Alchemy - the first ever television production based on the untold facts behind the myth of the story. In development is a screenplay based on the Whitbread/Orange novel Small Island for the BBC, the film Nightwatch based on the book by Sarah Waters, also for the BBC, and a four part mini series for Channel Four called Cleaver - about a wayward therapist with OCD, accused of killing one of his patients.

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