Thirty years after South Africa transitioned to democracy and a decade after Nelson Mandela’s death, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the official custodian of his personal archive, has granted its long-time creative partner and originating publisher of five books about Nelson Mandela, Blackwell & Ruth, exclusive permission to create the series.
Blackwell & Ruth is partnering with renowned South African filmmaker, Mandla Dube as director, and will co-produce with his production company, Pambilimedia.
The project will be Nelson Mandela’s own story ‘in his own words, narrated in his voice’.
Made in collaboration with the archive and research team, which Nelson Mandela personally authorised in 2004, made up of Verne Harris, Razia Saleh and Sahm Venter, it aims to be the most rigorously researched, in-depth and personal long-form documentary portrait of his life ever produced.
The series will be founded on unique access to an unmatched trove of public and private material assembled by the Nelson Mandela Foundation archival team and Blackwell & Ruth over the past 20 years.
It includes significant previously unpublished personal documents written by Mandela in prison, substantial unseen archival film footage, new and original footage, audio recordings, translations of transcripts of secret state recordings and many hundreds of pages of Mandela’s private writing and correspondence which will provide the basis for a profoundly personal narration.
The series is being created in a world defined by violence, precarity, fundamentalism and division. It is a moment when Nelson Mandela’s story and the dramatic events that unfolded in South Africa from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s can serve to inspire a new generation to believe that even the deepest generational division and hatred can be overcome by representative and ethical leadership, and by people standing up bravely in the pursuit of justice and a more compassionate world.
World rights are available and represented by Dogwoof who will launch the project at the Cannes Marche Du Film this month.
Speaking, Acting Chief Executive, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Verne Harris, said: “This will be the first documentary or documentary series that we’ve authorised as the Nelson Mandela Foundation and in revisiting his life, especially with the challenge of surfacing his voice, we have authorised the use of archival materials to translate what he wrote to himself into a voice that people can hear.
“For the Nelson Mandela Foundation, this series allows us to share with the world the contents of archival material that very often we’ve been searching for for many years, and have now found; content in Nelson Mandela’s own words which is very rich and offers new insights into his life.”
“One of the values that informs the project is respect for Nelson Mandela’s wish that we interrogate the archive and interrogate his life. Over many years I would go to him with materials that I’d found difficult and ask, “Are you sure you’re comfortable that this can be put in the public domain?” And he would say to me, and also to my colleagues, “Decisions on public access should be handled by professionals. It’s your task.”
And the most important directive he gave us was: “You don’t need to protect me.”
“The significance of South Africans telling this story is hugely important. This is a precious story. It’s important. It’s needed. Especially in these times when we’re looking around the world and leadership is missing, here we have a story that tells us how incredible leadership can come from the most dire circumstances.”
Also, Narrative Development Manager, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Kneo Mokgopa said: “We are decolonising the lens and the framework of who Nelson Mandela was. There are certain nuances and subtleties that we haven’t seen in films made by international filmmakers about Nelson Mandela, because there’s a certain voice that comes with being a child of the soil.”
Reacting, Director, Mandela: Life, Mandla Dube said: “If one looks at the books that have been published about Nelson Mandela, the movies, previous documentaries, whatever the intentions of the creators might have been, overwhelmingly they are a mediation of Black South African experience by white voices, very often not South African.
“And so, for us it’s really important that the work we’re about to embark on is driven by a Black South African and that the team is a South African team that has a particular ear for that voice that we’re trying to listen to and share with the world.”
