<spanface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=3>Written by Steve ‘Frosty’ Weintraub

 

<spanface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=1>Note: Due to interviewing over 30 people and being provided with movie clips to almost every film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it’s taken some time to post everything on the site. The goal is to be finished with all the Sundance stuff soon. In case you’ve missed clips or video interviews, look for a big wrap-up article when it’s all online<spanface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><spansize=1>.

<spanface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">One of the movies I was looking forward to seeing at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was director Pete Travis’ “Endgame”, which stars William Hurt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mark Strong, and Jonny Lee Miller. The film isa political thriller about the ending of apartheid in South Africa.

For those that don’t know, in the late 1980’s, South Africa was still dealing with apartheid. The white minority held all the power and groups like the ANC (African National Congress) were fighting to try and not only gain a foothold in government; but to get Nelson Mandela out of prison. Unfortunately, both groups were using violence to try and gain the upper hand; so many civilians were killed as casualties of the conflict.

But while most assumed the conflict would never end, Michael Young, an employee of Consolidated Gold in Britain, initiated private talks between the ANC and a select group of South African people like Willie Esterhuyse, a philosophy professor. The talks were done under the cloak of extreme secrecy, but that didn’t stop many from finding out about what was going on and trying to stop it. Over the course many months, the sides found ways to not only work together, but to provide peace to the country.

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It’s a fascinating story.

<spanface="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Anyway, the reason I’ve just gone on and on about “Endgame” is…while at this year’s Festival, I was able to interview director Pete Travis at the MySpace Café in Park City. During our conversation we talked about not only making “Endgame”, but how he found out he got into “Sundance” and a lot more. It's a very in depth conversation and one that I think you'll enjoy.

And if you’d like to see some movie clips from “Endgame”, click here.

Pete Travis

 

  • What has Sundance been like for him this year
  • We talk about how Sundance is all about the films
  • How did Endgame come together and was this a passion project for him
  • Peter talks about the casting process
  • When did he find out the film got into Sundance
  • Did they accept it as a rough cut or was the movie finished
  • How does the process work – did they come to London or was the film mailed
  • What is the current distribution plan
  • Did he ever think about showing the movie to buyers before the festival
  • When did he wrap the movie
  • Is he already thinking about his next project and will he do another Hollywood movie or an indie
  • I ask if he’d ever do a romantic comedy as he seems to make a lot of political films