The Furiosus explores the tortured story of Dimitri Tsafendas, assassin of Hendrik Verwoerd. Declared by a judge to be a madman—‘a Furiosus’ in Roman law—Tsafendas spent 28 years on death row. Produced as if giving evidence before the TRC, the director becomes the attorney in the trial that never was, arguing that Tsafendas had raged against Verwoerd’s classifications of race.

Interviewed after his release from prison to Sterkfontein Hospital, Tsafendas is an ill man, suffering the continuing effects of years of brutal treatment. Nonetheless, he comes across as engaging, even lucid. The genius of the film is in the director’s capacity to allow contradictory impressions of Tsafendas to emerge. Fragments of memories collected from many who knew Tsafendas in prison years and before generate a portrait of one of the most complex figures of South African history; someone loathed by many, admired by most, and misunderstood by all.