Escape From Pretoria tells the true story of South African political prisoners in the late ’70s. Having just premiered in the United States, both in select cinemas and on digital platforms, the film stars Daniel Radcliffe as the protagonist and author of the autobiographical source material.
Director Francis Annan also took on the task of writing the script, a process he discussed with Screen Rant in a recent interview. He also shared how Radcliffe got into the mindset of Tim Jenkin and the next historical drama up his sleeve.
You did such a great job with building tension. Can you talk to me about some of the filmmaking methods you used to build tension in the film?
How did you find out about the story and settle on this as your project?
Francis Annan: Point of view is a big thing for me. So, as much as possible, you do not see what the main characters don’t see until they see it. But you do hear it, and sometimes you are aware of it. That latent distant threats through sound were one way of trying to evoke a potential sort of unseen threat.
I kind of draw a circle around the main characters. You would see them, and then you would see whatever they saw, only in as much as their position and geography allowed you to see. There were a lot of shots where you can’t see around the corner, because they can’t. I was trying to put the audience very much in the literal shoes and perspectives of the main characters using sound.
Oftentimes, we were actually not using music and just having a raw energy and the potential threat of the environment. A lot of it’s very simple, but you understand the stakes. And then stripping everything away and making it just about the key or just about one element instead of throwing all my eggs in one basket.
Prison reform is such a big topic here in the United States. What changes do you think need to be made in prisons?
Francis Annan: I met the producers back in 2012. They had lost the rights to the project but then got them back again, and I was attached the director. There were two drafts but it kind of wasn’t really working, and so I started writing myself.
It was through meeting producers and reading the book, falling in love with the book and annotating it, and giving my take on it, which they agreed with. And then writing, casting and raising the money.
Something that can’t go overlooked is Daniel Radcliffe’s performance. It’s out of this world; he knocks it out of the park and goes through quite the transformation. Can you talk to me about the transformation that he went through, and how you guided him into becoming Tim?
Francis Annan: It’s interesting, because in the book… Tim Jenkin says prison is for different things. It’s to get bad people off the street; it is also punishment, if you’ve done something wrong the state invests a punishment upon you - not just a deterrent, but also a retributive thing. But also it’s restorative - you’ve done something wrong, so they take you out of general population and put you in this place, and ‘restore’ you so that when we send you back out, you don’t do it again.
I think that third element is something that a lot of cultures can be missing; the restorative element to try and get people not to do whatever they did again. That can be always in the mind, even if it’s not the main purpose, it’s one of the potential parts that could be very useful. If you don’t do that, and you just punish or you just take people off the street, we don’t get to retrain them to say “I did wrong. I understand why, and here’s the help to not do that again.”
I don’t know the ins and outs of the American prison system, but I think that any culture that tries to do that will reduce the number of reoffenders and actually helped people to rebuild their lives.
When I was doing a little bit of research, it said you were the writing the script for the 1958 Notting Hill riots. Can you talk to me about what to expect from that film? Because after watching this, I think you’re perfect for that.
Francis Annan: Yeah. There were a lot of non-dialogue, action sequences in the film. A lot of two to three page streams of just action.
So, non-dialogue communication was really important. We watched a lot of French films; there was a film we watched called A Man Escaped. There was also once called Le Trou, or The Hole, and these French films from the 60s and 70s that have extended non-dialogue sequences that are very compelling.
We talked about how things that can really communicate to the audience the tension and stress were really important, and making sure that stuff came through. The physicality and the muscular element was something that Dan worked on quite a bit. And to get himself into shape, because prisoners are often in good shape.
And the desperation and tension - having a lot of pressure which you are not allowed to express, which you bottle up - is also important. We talked a lot about making sure that in the back of his mind, he’s always anxious, always worried that they were going to get caught. Do they know? That’s something that’s also in the book that Tim mentioned; they were always wondering whether the next day someone would hear something or would catch them.
These are the things that that Dan, I think, had in mind. And yes, I think it’s a brilliant performance. A really nice, simple, muted yet strong performance.
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Francis Annan: In 1958 London, there was a riot that happened. It just goes into the origins of what caused that riot, and it will be centered on a Caribbean male character who loses his wife in the riots. He’s torn between going to find his wife at the local police station or going to get his sister, who has 2 children whom the rioters are about to go and attack.
It’s got a thriller element to it, but also raises questions about racism in race and what sparks these things. That’s the breakdown. I’m hoping to cast and get the writing going later this year.
- Escape from Pretoria Release Date: 2020-03-06
