Shepherds and Butchers

Spoken: English, Afrikaans. Subtitles: English. 

South Africa, 1987. When Leon, a white 19-year-old prison guard commits an inexplicable act of violence, killing seven black men in a hail of bullets, the outcome of the trial - and the court’s sentence - seems a foregone conclusion. Hotshot lawyer John Weber reluctantly takes on the seemingly unwinnable case. A passionate opponent of the death penalty, John discovers that young Leon worked on death row in the nation’s most notorious prison, under traumatic conditions: befriending the inmates over the years while having to assist their eventual execution. As the court hearings progress, the case offers John the opportunity to put the entire system of legally sanctioned murder on trial. How can one man take such a dual role of friend and executioner, becoming both shepherd and butcher? The film’s reflection upon individual and collective guilt and how violence only breeds more violence results in an emphatic plea against the death penalty.
Inspired by true events and the debut novel (2008) by the South African author Chris Marnewick.