Winnie Mandela akasirishwa na filamu mpya kumhusu

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Winnie Mandela angry over biopic​

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in typical form
​

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was never consulted about a new movie on her turbulent life and marriage to Nelson Mandela, her lawyers told the film-makers in a letter leaked Tuesday to South African media.​

Jennifer Hudson, who scooped a best supporting actress Oscar in 2007 for her performance in the musical "Dreamgirls", said in November that she would be starring in the film that would bring a "powerful part of history" to cinema screens.​

Titled "Winnie", the film is directed by South African film-maker Darrell J. Roodt, whose work includes "Cry, The Beloved Country" and "Sarafina."​

But a letter from her attorney Bowman Gilfillan said Madikizela-Mandela was "extremely concerned" to hear about the film, saying "she has never been approached for consent or at all," according to The Star newspaper.​

"It is difficult to understand how a production bearing the name of an individual who has not been consulted at all could ever be appropriate or tell the full story of that individual's life as media reports suggest this production is intended to," the letter said, according to the paper.​

"This is certainly the case here, where our client has not responded to allegations and comment which have been made about her, precisely because she has sought to protect her sphere of personal privacy as best she can in extremely difficult and turbulent times," it added.​

Gilfillan's office declined to comment on the report, citing lawyer-client confidentiality.​

Madikizela-Mandela campaigned tirelessly for her husband's release during his 27-year imprisonment in the apartheid era.​

However her image was tarnished by a series of scandals including her links to the kidnap and murder of a young activist and a 2003 conviction for fraud.​

She separated from Nelson Mandela in 1992, two years after his release, but she remains a leading South African figure in own her own right.​

The ruling African National Congress placed her fifth on its party list in last year's elections, a sign of prestige that guaranteed her a seat in parliament.​

The film had already stoked controversy in South Africa when Hudson was tapped to play the role, sparking outrage among local actors who complained that South African talent had again been overlooked by Hollywood.​

The Clint Eastwood film "Invictus", about South Africa's 1995 Rugby World Cup victory, stars Morgan Freeman playing Mandela and has been a hit on local screens.​

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100126/ennew_afp/entertainmentussafricafilmmandelahudson​

 

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Can Winnie Mandela's Heroism Outshine Her Crimes?​

By John Thynne
Producer, The Real Winnie Mandela


She was known to many as the Mother of the Nation, but Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the once celebrated heroine of the anti-apartheid struggle, is no stranger to controversy.

Now it seems that film-makers on both sides of the Atlantic have seen the dramatic potential.

Jennifer Hudson has been lined up to play the lead role in a Hollywood film of the revolutionary firebrand's life, and the BBC has filmed its own drama, Mrs Mandela, with Sophie Okonedo in the lead role.

But which Winnie Madikizela-Mandela will we see? The central drama in Winnie's life is whether her heroism can outshine her crimes.

Among South Africans today, this is still a deeply divisive issue. To understand why, you need to understand the full story of Winnie's journey from young social worker to fearless leader of the struggle.

Winnie first came to international attention at the Rivonia trial in 1964 - when Nelson Mandela and seven other anti-apartheid campaigners were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Joe Thloloe lived near the Mandelas in Soweto at the time and was deeply impressed by Winnie's defiance.

"Her husband has just been sentenced to life imprisonment, but she's still strong enough to say: 'I will continue the struggle.'

"She knows that she faces exactly the same fate as her husband. It was tremendously courageous of her."

Interrogation and banishment

Left alone to bring up two small children, the apartheid regime made her the target for a campaign of harassment.

Joyce Sikakane worked with Winnie, printing and distributing ANC literature until they were arrested together in 1969.

In jail, they were both interrogated by the notorious apartheid torturer, Theunis Swanepoel.

"He ordered me to stand on bricks, he took a pistol from a drawer, pointed it at me and said: 'If you don't talk, you'll be gone.'

"And I remember saying to him: 'What kind of a human being are you... to do this to me?'" Ms Sikakane said.

For Winnie, there was no turning back. In the aftermath of the Soweto Riots in 1976 she began to emerge as a leader in her own right.

Sensing her rising popularity, the apartheid authorities hit upon a new punishment for Winnie - they banished her to a small township, hundreds of miles from her home.

Out of control

But banishing Winnie did not tame her. In exile, her politics grew increasingly radical.

When the BBC interviewed her in hiding in 1981, she spoke of plans to mobilise the country around the growing realisation that black workers were crucial to the economy.

We are the power of this land, these black hands are what has made this country what it is... We can bring this country down to its knees."

By 1985, she had had enough. As unrest gripped the townships, Winnie openly defied the regime and moved back to Soweto.

Increasingly, her rhetoric played to the mob, as when she made her most infamous speech in Munsieville, saying: "With our necklaces we shall liberate this country."

That reference to the gruesome township method for dealing with police informers (burning people alive using petrol-filled tyres) showed how far Winnie had travelled since she too was betrayed by informers in 1969.

Many viewed her as out of control. The innocent-sounding Mandela United Football Club, her personal bodyguard, was terrorising the neighbourhood in Soweto.

In 1988, rumours started to circulate that on Winnie's orders, they had kidnapped, tortured and killed a 14-year-old activist, Stompie Moeketsi.
Thandeka Gqubule was a cub reporter on the Weekly Mail at the time. An ANC activist herself, she had long admired Winnie as a leader of the struggle.

She broke the news that Mandela's wife may have been involved in a murder.

"On the one hand I was frightened of the enormity and the implications of the story, and on the other hand I knew that I was a journalist and I was committed to telling the truth," she said.

Winnie's alleged involvement in a murder was political dynamite.

"This was as big a bomb as Hiroshima for the South African political psyche… Is Mandela's wife now a monster that can actually participate in the murder of a child?" recalls Mathatha Tsedu, the political editor of The Sowetan newspaper.

'Complicated' personality

Nelson Mandela's release from jail in 1990 momentarily took the spotlight away from Winnie. Ironically, his release was to signal the start of her downfall.
Their marriage did not survive, as details of Winnie's adultery emerged.

But Winnie did not quietly fade away. Despite convictions for kidnap and fraud, she remains on the political stage.

Last year, at the age of 73, the ANC placed her fifth on their MP list for the general election.

So how does Winnie manage to survive?

RW Johnson, the veteran South African commentator, summed up her popularity.

"She's scary, attractive, powerful, wealthy, an international celebrity - there aren't many people that you can say all those things of... and people respond quite powerfully to that magic," he said.

South Africans seem genuinely split on whether she can be forgiven for her role in the events surrounding Stompie Moeketsi's death.

"Those were extraordinary times and extraordinary behaviours took place, and for those reasons I hope that history judges her kindly and takes the composite contribution of her efforts to the struggle as her legacy," Thandeka Gqubule said.

But others are not so forgiving. Mathatha Tsedu cannot ignore her behaviour in Soweto in the late 1980s.

"I think history will view her as a complicated personality with a streak of leadership… who had a flawed personality that resulted in an atrocity being committed, that became a shame on every one of us occupying any position of leadership in this country

The Real Winnie Mandela will be broadcast on BBC Four on Monday 25 January at 2230 GMT.
The film Mrs Mandela, starring Sophie Okonedo premiers on BBC Four at 2100 GMT, before the documentary.
Or catch-up afterwards on BBC iPlayer (UK only).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8474580.stm

 

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Stompie, 14, was killed during the struggle against apartheid.
Winnie Mandela is suspected to have had a hand in his death​

 

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Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson, seen here in October 2009. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's lawyers have complained to the makers of a new movie about her life, saying she was never consulted about the film starring Hudson, local media said​

 

[Binti Maringo]

Jennifer Hudson alikuwa acheze kwenye ile movie ya Invictus lakini hawakumuweka tena kutokana na malalamiko kutoka kwa wanawake south Africa....So movie yote ilionyeshwa maisha ya Nelson Mandela baada ya prison...It was a great movie kwa kweli ..Bravo to Morgan Freeman...