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Wednesday, Oct 14, 1987
Cry Freedom
Tickets are $12,general and $10, UC students and UAM Members. Advance tickets areavailable at BASS/Ticketmaster outlets (phone 762-BASS) and at the PFAbusiness office (Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m.-noon, 1:00-5:00 p.m.)and box office (during evening hours). Sir RichardAttenborough, producer and director of Gandhi, once again turns his andour attention to the martyrdom of a persuasive man of peace in CryFreedom, an intimate, true tragedy set against the epic upheavals ofcontemporary South Africa. It is the story of Stephen Biko, a youngblack leader, his struggle and his death; and his unlikely friendshipwith a white journalist, Donald Woods, who championed his cause andclandestinely wrote his biography. Biko was a leader of the BlackConsciousness Movement, an organization whose aim was to imbue blackpeople with a sense of positive pride without the aid or intervention ofwell meaning white liberals. Ironically, Woods was just this sort ofliberal. Their friendship, as described in Woods' book Asking forTrouble, opened both their minds. Biko was warm, articulate andcompassionate; he was popular, and had the potential to become more so.On September 12, 1977, having sustained terrible injuries duringinterrogation by Security Police, Biko died. When officials ascribed hisdeath to a hunger strike, Woods threw himself and his newspaper behind acampaign to force the authorities to hold an inquest. An equallypowerful campaign was begun to silence Woods, and the author was forcedto flee South Africa, along with his wife and children, in a classicdisguise-and-deception escape that has all the elements-but more of theterror-of a fictional thriller. Cry Freedom, starring Denzel Washingtonas Biko and Kevin Kline as Woods, is based on two books, Biko and Askingfor Trouble, by Woods, who is still a Banned Person in South Africa.
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