At the weekend we set off to the Nelson Mandela Foundation at the Houghton Estates for the press conference of the movie Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Except for the mix-up at the gate with our names absent on the list, we managed to swiftly waltz into the venue where we were treated like royalty.
Tokyo Sexwale, who oozes so much sense of humour, did a great job entertaining us and telling us his history with Mr Mandela himself. Half the time we were in stitches.
Let’s admit it, movies about Mandela have been done to death, but there is something different, fresh and interesting about this Anant Singh production. Firstly, Singh got everything right from the cast to the story lining.
And even better, he had the whole Mandela clan backing him on the project. The cast includes South African greats like Terry Pheto who portrays Mandela’s first wife Evelyn, Zikhona Sodlaka who plays Mandela’s mother, Atandwa Kani who plays the young Mandela, Riaad Moosa who plays Ahmed Kathrada and Tony and Sthadiwe Kgoroge who play Walter and Albertina Sisulu respectively.
Sadly, the man of the moment Idris Elba who plays Madiba had an asthma attack on the plane the night before and was hospitalized, so he couldn’t make it to the conference. But the rest of the cast came out for a give-and-take with the media which had representatives hailing as far as the USA and UK especially for the conference.
Zinzdi Mandela (who is extremely friendly) said that she emotionally related to a lot of scenes in the movie. She later took pictures with EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE. She should be the only one with a right to have a reality show about “Being Mandela” - she represents everything Mandela and she’s as close to the name than most who've sucked the juices out of the name.
The movie premieres in South Africa on the 28th of November and we will be first to see it before it’s released overseas. Be sure to book a ticket ... from the trailer we were treated to, this will surely take home some statuettes and is a MUST-Watch. Apparently even Tata thought Idris looked a lot like him while Winnie said Naomi Harris is an African. So treat yourself to this proudly South African movie, it’s definitely worth every cent.
@narekekana