The Constant Gardener/Out of Africa/Catch a Fire

Triple-bill of African-set dramas. In 'The Constant Gardener' (2005), when political activist Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz, in an Oscar-winning performance) is found brutally murdered in Kenya, her widowed husband, unassuming minor diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), becomes increasingly belligerent in his attempt to solve the mystery of her death, to the surprise of his British High Commission colleagues.

Haunted by remorse and by insidious rumours of his wife's infidelities, Quayle uses his access to diplomatic secrets to unearth a vast and dangerous conspiracy involving the methods of big pharmaceutical companies and the exploitation of the Third World by the West, at the same time as he discovers more about the beautiful young wife he never really knew.

In 'Out of Africa' (1985), Karen (Meryl Streep) arrives in Africa in 1914 and marries Baron Bror Blixen-Finecke (Klaus Maria Brandauer).

Their marriage soon cools into a 'civilised' separation, but Karen finds herself falling in love with the wild, unfamiliar country and its people.

Then she meets handsome, fiercely independent hunter Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), and a hesitant romance ensues.

Finally, in 'Catch a Fire' (2006), Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke) is a 31-year-old black South African living the straight life in 1981; foreman at an oil refinery, football coach, family man and upstanding citizen.

His calling comes when he and his wife Precious (Bonnie Mbuli) are questioned and blatantly accused of planting a bomb at the refinery where he works.

The authorities, primarily one Police Colonel Nic Vos (Tim Robbins), so brutalise them in the process that Chamusso does in fact subsequently join the ANC and volunteer for active service in the shape of planting an actual bomb in the refinery.