A Common Purpose

Synopsis

Brief Logline Fourteen people are sentenced to hang, one lawyer is assassinated and the other chooses exile in A Common Purpose, the dramatic story behind South Africa’s biggest murder trial during the dying days of the apartheid era. Synopsis In the late 1980’s, during the most violent climax of the apartheid regime, 25 men and women were rounded up in a black township in South Africa to stand trial for the brutal murder of a black policeman. This was the biggest murder trial South Africa had ever seen. Upington, the small white town on the edge of the Kalahari desert, was besieged by the legal trial which brought serious threat to the lives of the defence team – culminating in the assassination of the lead lawyer, Anton Lubowski. This is the story of how the case irrevocably changed the course of the lives of the accused and their legal team as South Africa transitioned into a post apartheid state. It tells of great personal courage, betrayal and political assassination followed by the exile of one legal partner, Andrea Durbach, to Australia. The film is structured by Andrea’s return to South Africa twenty years later to discover where the lives of the accused have led and to uncover the story behind the killing of her legal partner, Anton Lubowski. ‘A Common Purpose’ tells a universal story of resilience and commitment to justice, set in a country that distorted its legal system to serve injustice. Ultimately, it reveals the relentless pursuit of human rights as we reveal South Africa’s reconciliation with its past and transition to its post apartheid present.