“Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe is set to play the lead role in the epic story of a white anti-apartheid activist who escapes from one of South Africa’s toughest prisons, the film’s producers said Friday. The hit thriller “Escape From Pretoria” is based on Tim Jenkin’s account of his dramatic escape from the notorious maximum security Pretoria Prison with his friend Stephen Lee in 1979. Jenkin, now 68, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for distributing leaflets in support of the then-banned African National Congress. But the following year he managed to create a set of wooden keys for a series of doors in the prison, which housed the country’s death row. Using a device made from a broomstick and a mirror that he had hidden in his cell, Jenkin opened his cell door and then freed his neighbor and friend Lee. Both managed to escape the heavily guarded prison and eventually fled to London. Producer David Barron, who also worked on the “Harry Potter” films, said the film about this “amazing true story” will be “political without being polemical.” “‘Escape From Pretoria’ is a rare combination of genre and drama and I’m delighted to bring together the powerful combination of Daniel Radcliffe and Francis Annan,” he added as the film was launched at the Cannes Film Festival. Annan, an up-and-coming young black British director, also wrote the screenplay for the film, which will be shot in South Africa next year. Radcliffe, 27, has also been signed to star in the action comedy “Guns Akimbo,” which also launched at Cannes.