TV mini-series in the making to dig deeper and tell Madiba’s life story
the apartheid hero.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation said it supported the undertaking and was helping with research.
Kweku Mandela said it would seek to portray “Mandela the man” instead of ”Mandela the saint”.
Out of Africa, Canada’s Blue Ice Films and Britain’s Left Bank Pictures will film mainly on-site in SA.
“We will start filming in August and plan to release by 2013,” Samuels said. “We are pretty much putting the script together and casting.”
Main characters will be cast from London and Los Angeles, while South African actors would make up the supporting cast, said Samuels.
Emmy and Bafta-winning writer Nigel Williams, acclaimed for the miniseries Elizabeth I with Helen Mirren in the title role, is penning the six one-hour television episodes.
The screenplay will be based on two Mandela books – his autobiographical Conversa-
“All movies about Mandela only pinpointed one period in his life. A miniseries can cover his life from when he was a little boy until he became president,” Samuels said.
The producers include Left Bank Pictures’ Andy Harries and Marigo Kehoe, famed for the Oscar-winning film The Queen, also starring Mirren.
The public’s interest in Mandela, 93, has remained strong throughout his imprisonment, political career and retirement.
Several films have been made about his life, notably Clint Eastwood’s Invictus (2009) with Morgan Freeman in the title role, and Goodbye Bafana (2007), with Joseph Fiennes playing a jail warden opposite Dennis Haysbert’s Mandela. – SAPA-AFP