Between 1985 and 1994, South Africa moves from apartheid enforced by law to a multi-racial democracy, and this film tracks Nelson Mandela through the years that make that shift possible. It covers the final stretch of the ANC's liberation struggle, the negotiations between Mandela and the National Party both before and after his release from prison, and the violent conflict between the ANC and Zulu fighters, footage and testimony pointing to a covert Third Force of security police organizing that violence from behind the scenes. The film also follows the unlikely alliance that forms between the ANC and the National Party against a shared threat from the extremes on both sides, white reactionaries like the AWB and Terre Blanche facing off against militant factions on the black side. Structured partly as a political biography, it traces how Mandela holds to a stated commitment to peaceful, inclusive transition through repeated crises rather than retaliation. The film closes on the ANC's 1994 campaign to form South Africa's first democratic government.