WINNIE SOME, LOSE SOME
She refuses to endorse movie on which she ‘wasn’t consulted’
The movie causing all the trouble
DARRELL Roodt hopes that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela will change her mind about his film of her life.
“I hope she sees it and I hope she loves it,” said the director of Winnie Mandela.
Madikizela-Mandela has distanced herself from the film, which opens in South Africa next week.
US critics have slated the film, which stars US actors Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard in the lead roles.
Madikizela-Mandela said in a statement the producers did not consult her or her family.
“My family and I are therefore not associated with this production,” she said, adding that attempts by her to reach out to the producers were rejected.
“I imagine the basis was to allow the creative process to occur organically — a concept I try to understand. I respect all creative efforts to make this story one that would appeal to a global audience, as well as yield commercial gains for all those who invested in it,” she said.
Madikizela-Mandela’s personal assistant, Zodwa Zwane, said this week that she was still in mourning and would not comment further.
Roodt said he had wanted Hudson to meet MadikizelaMandela before filming.
Winne Mandela has been a long time in the making. Producer Andre Pieterse said the rights were bought in 2005 and work on the screenplay took four years.
Roodt said that an incomplete screening at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011 had been “damaging” because critics had “nailed” the incomplete film.
“You should never show a film like that,” he said, referring to the movie’s funders, who had made the decision.
It was then released in the US in September and was due for release in South Africa on November 28, but because of a clash with the release of Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, the producers were asked to hold back, said Pieterse.
Long Walk to Freedom, of which Roodt was once part, got
I wanted to go beyond apartheid cinema. I wanted to tell that love story against the burning backdrops
a buy-in from the Mandela family, went on to generate an Oscar buzz and smashed South African box-office records.
But Roodt said although the movie was an excellent portrayal of Nelson Mandela’s story, “it lacks a bit of soul”.
He defended his film, saying he wanted to tell the story because Madikizela-Mandela was an “enigmatic character” who made people “wary” at the mere mention of her name.
He said the audience who saw the film in Soweto this week “loved it”.
He raved about Howard in the role of Mandela, saying he was a committed actor who made some in the audience swoon.
Of his leading lady, he said: “Jennifer is not a natural actress. She won the Oscar for Dream Girls, but she had to go to a much deeper place. And she got there. The person who came to South Africa was not the same one who left.”
Of the reviews, which raised issues such as Madikizela-Mandela’s many costume changes and the glossed-over story line, he said: “I wanted to go beyond apartheid cinema. I wanted to tell that love story against the burning backdrops. And all the costumes were researched and taken from real life.”