Catch a Fire (film)
2006 film by Phillip Noyce
Catch a Fire is a 2006 biographical thriller film about anti-apartheid activists in South Africa. The film was directed by Phillip Noyce and written by Shawn Slovo. Slovo's father, Joe Slovo, and mother Ruth First, leaders of the South African Communist Party and activists in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, appear as characters in the film, while her sister, Robyn Slovo, is one of the film's producers and also plays their mother Ruth First. Catch a Fire was filmed on location in South Africa, Eswatini and Mozambique.
Plot
In South Africa in 1980, Patrick Chamusso, a young, apolitical man, is accused of carrying out a terrorist bombing. Afrikaner police officer Nic Vos is in charge of locating the perpetrators of a recent terrorist attack against the Secunda CTL synthetic fuel refinery, which is the largest coal liquefaction plant in the world.
Patrick is unwillingly swept into Vos's investigation due to his inability to provide a satisfactory explanation for his whereabouts at the time of the bombing (he was actually having an affair with a woman not his wife). Eventually Patrick, his wife, Precious, and his family are tortured by Vos and his subordinates. Desperate, Patrick says that he is willing to confess to a crime he did not commit to protect his family. Vos concludes that Patrick is innocent, and orders his release.
“Catch a Fire (film)” enters the record as 2006 film by Phillip Noyce. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Catch, Fire and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1050558. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006 and 1980.
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