Across the Rubicon (1987)

• 69%
• 1987
• Documentary
• Lionel Friedberg

Pieter-Dirk Uys is a South African female impersonator/caricaturist whose finely-wrought satirical touring show elucidates apartheid while lampooning it. Uys walks a thin line between censorship and arrest as he occasionally steps out of characters that include P.W. Botha, Desmond Tutu and Margaret Thatcher to deliver pointed attacks on apartheid and the South African government. Uys's popularity with both white and black audiences insulates him somewhat from government interference, but he describes his balancing act as being "like doing the tango in front of a firing squad." Across the Rubicon brilliantly portrays the humor and grace with which Uys makes his contribution to the fight against apartheid.