CATCH A FIRE

A Special Presentation at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival®, Phillip Noyce's CATCH A FIRE is a rousing political thriller that pivots on the most intimate of betrayals that unfold in the ground war against apartheid.

Based on true events, the film tells the story of Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke, ANTWONE FISHER), an easygoing coal worker-turned-African National Congress (ANC) militant. A foreman at a South African refinery, Patrick swallows apartheid's daily humiliations in order to provide for his family. All that changes when he is accused of bombing the refinery. He is arrested, held for days and mercilessly interrogated; his wife, Precious (Bonnie Henna), is viciously brutalized to coerce him to confess. By the time security police chief Nic Vos (Tim Robbins, MYSTIC RIVER , SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) finally releases the couple, Precious has been broken: just the look in her eyes tells Patrick what the police have done to her. Patrick joins the ANC's military wing and begins plotting an act that will make him Vos's most dangerous adversary.

Luke turns in a terrific performance as a man finding his political principles even as his personal life starts to unravel. He and Robbins create a tangible intensity, and Noyce frames their conflict against the ever-present paranoia of South Africa in the eighties. CATCH A FIRE carries both the electric charge of Noyce's spy thrillers (PATRIOT GAMES, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER) and the complex sense of motivation he brought to RABBIT-PROOF FENCE and THE QUIET AMERICAN. Screenwriter Shawn Slovo (A WORLD APART) returns here to a history in which her father, ANC leader Joe Slovo, played a part. Her story makes room for the telling deceptions used by both sides. In one case the black refinery workers launch into a joyous song that sounds innocuous but in fact celebrates the bombing. In another, white South African forces disguise themselves to infiltrate an ANC camp, launching an attack in blackface. All is fair in war, but in CATCH A FIRE the tests of love between Patrick and Precious carry the highest price.

"An affecting story of punishment and crime, of betrayal and redemption marred by preachiness and a treacly ending, Catch a Fire is notable for its refusal to see things in terms of black and white." - Joanne Kaufman, Wall Street Journal