Breaking the Rules Screening at DC Jewish Film Festival On December 10, 2006, Breaking the Rules, a film produced by Five Star Films Inc. was featured at a "work in progress" screening at the DC Jewish Film Festival. A US/South Africa co-production, Breaking the Rules is a 90 min. feature documentary that explores the little known story of the white South Africans in the struggle against apartheid. It is slated for completion in late 2008. Producer/director Carolyn Projansky and co-producer/writer Susan Barocas shared excerpts from their documentary project about white resistance to apartheid in South Africa. By focusing on the actions of four individuals, the filmmakers offered new perspectives on those who joined the courageous forty-year struggle against racial injustice and oppression in South Africa. Helen Suzman, member of parliament from 1953-89 sought to challenge apartheid through legal reform and vigorously defended the rights of political prisoners, including Nelson and Winnie Mandela. For 13 years she was the lone voice of opposition in the parliament. Ronnie Kasrils sought to overthrow the regime through violence. Taking up arms and joining the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, Kasrils spent 27 years underground and in exile. Max du Preez, an Afrikaner journalist, experienced a political transformation while covering the Soweto student uprisings in 1976, began investigating torture by the apartheid government and subsequently started the first anti-apartheid newspaper written in Afrikaans. Kate Philip, a former student activist, was one of the leaders of the university-based white student movement during the 1980s. The film tells its story through interviews with these four main characters shot on location throughout South Africa as well as rarely seen archival footage, dramatic re-enactments and revealing commentary from other key players in the apartheid era including former South African Presidents Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk; Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, former Archbishop of Cape Town; controversial resistance leader Winnie Mandela, and Barney Pityana, co-founder of the Black Consciousness movement with Steven Biko. Through its characters and commentators, the film raises challenging questions about the meaning of racialism/non-racialism, individual moral action and the tactics that best bring about social change during times of oppression. The film traces the history of the resistance movement from its founding in the 1940s through the election of Nelson Mandela as President. It also explores how whites as allies in the struggle impacts attitudes and actions in the new South Africa today. The program was moderated by David Weinstein, Senior Program Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities and co-sponsored by Women in Film & Video.