Shawn Slovo

Birth : 1950-01-01, South Africa

History

Born in South Africa in 1950 as daughter to white anti-apartheid activists Joe Slovo and Ruth First, she grew up in London after the family in 1964 arrived in the UK as political refugees. In the late 1970s she served as Robert De Niro's personal assistant while he made the films 'Raging Bull' and 'The King of Comedy'. Her first screenplay and first film, 'A World Apart,' directed by Chris Menges, won the Jury Prize, and the Ecumenical and Best Actress Awards at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, and the 1988 BAFTA Best Original Screenplay Award. She lives in northern London. Her sister Robyn Slovo is a successful film producer, and her sister Gillian Slovo is a novelist.

Movies

Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight
Writer
Muhammad Ali’s historic Supreme Court battle from behind closed doors. When Ali was drafted into the Vietnam War at the height of his boxing career, his claim to conscientious objector status led to a controversial legal battle that rattled the U.S. judicial system right up to the highest court in the land.
Catch a Fire
Screenplay
The true story of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, and particularly the life of Patrick Chamusso, a timid foreman at Secunda CTL, the largest synthetic fuel plant in the world. Patrick is wrongly accused, imprisoned and tortured for an attempt to bomb the plant, with the injustice transforming the apolitical worker into a radicalised insurgent, who then carries out his own successful sabotage mission.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Screenplay
When a fisherman leaves to fight with the Greek army during World War II, his fiancée falls in love with the local Italian commander.
A World Apart
Associate Producer
A White enclave in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the 1960s. Molly Roth, 13 years old, is the daughter of leftist parents, and she must piece together what's happening around her when her father disappears one night, barely evading arrest, and, not long after, her mother is detained by the authorities. Some of Molly's White friends turn against her, and her family's friendships with Blacks take on new meaning. Relationships are fragile in the world of apartheid. How will she manage?
A World Apart
Writer
A White enclave in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the 1960s. Molly Roth, 13 years old, is the daughter of leftist parents, and she must piece together what's happening around her when her father disappears one night, barely evading arrest, and, not long after, her mother is detained by the authorities. Some of Molly's White friends turn against her, and her family's friendships with Blacks take on new meaning. Relationships are fragile in the world of apartheid. How will she manage?
Balada da Praia dos Cães
Dialogue
In Portugal, in the 60s, the corpse of a man appears on Dog's Beach. The corpse is identified as the major Dantas, a man wanted by authorities after his escape from a military prison where he was awaiting trial for insurrection.
Good Morning, Mr. Mandela
Screenplay
A feature adaptation of Zelda la Grange’s book, a personal tribute to the late South African leader and freedom fighter, one of the dominant figures in global politics in the second half of the 20th century. After his presidency, Mandela picked La Grange to serve as his private secretary at a time when distrust and tensions still ran high in South Africa between the black population and white Afrikaners.