On the big screen: Plot for Peace

Directors: Mandy Jacobson and Carlos Agullo.

Plot for Peace starts with the mid-’80s, when township violence in South Africa raged and one of the Cold War’s most vicious proxy conflicts devastated Angola. Jean-Yves Olivier, a foreign commodity trader with connections to all stakeholders in the region, found himself to be the lifeline for top-secret contacts, becoming instrumental in ending Apartheid. In the style of John LeCarre, the film relates how South Africa and the front line states came out of the Cold War long before Berlin Wall crumbled. First-hand accounts from such figures as Thabo Mbeki, Joachim Chissano, Denis Sassou Nguesso, ‘Pik’ Botha and Winnie Mandela expose the secret dealings between the last tenants of Apartheid and the Marxist forces at South Africa’s borders.