Controversial Mandela movie starts shooting

Controversial Mandela movie starts shooting

By Bryan Pearson

JOHANNESBURG (AFP): Filming started Monday on the controversial movie One Man, One Vote, the first of two planned films depicting aspects of President Nelson Mandela's life, producer David Wicht said last Sunday.

Directed by four time Emmy Award winner Joseph Sargent, the U.S. Showtime Networks-backed movie stars Sidney Poitier as Mandela and Michael Caine as former president and now Deputy President Frederik de Klerk.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) in a statement this week said the Showtime movie had not been authorized by Mandela despite the president's "great respect and warm relations with Sydney Poitier."

"The ANC on behalf of President Nelson Mandela confirms the only film which has the blessing and authorization of the president is Long Walk To Freedom," it said.

The organization was referring to a film due to be made next year on Mandela's life by South African producer Anant Singh, who made his mark internationally with Sarafina and Cry, The Beloved Country.

Singh has been granted the film rights to Mandela's autobiography Long Walk To Freedom and plans to make an epic movie of Mandela's life on the scale of Gandhi.

The use of Poitier in the Showtime movie has been criticized by the Performing Arts Workers Equity (PAWE).

"Our concern is for cultural veracity," PAWE spokesman Dan Robberste said recently. "We believe that actors do exist in this country who are capable of playing Mandela with greater truth."

Wicht in a radio interview last Sunday defended One Man, One Vote, saying it was a "very important film."

"It deals with a crucial period of our history," he said, "when the former apartheid government came to the realization that they will have to deal with Nelson Mandela."

The film explores the behind-the-scenes bargaining and negotiating that led to Mandela's release from 27 years in apartheid jails in 1990 and to the striking of deals which paved the way for peaceful democratic elections in 1994.

"De Klerk and Mandela changed the course of South African history," Wicht said, adding that the movie focuses on the relationship between the two men and those who surrounded them, and the negotiating process that led to Mandela becoming president on May 10, 1994.

"It is a celebration of this event," Wicht said.

The film will be given a brief theatrical release before being screened on Showtime's TV movie channels.

Wicht said filming, all in Cape Town, was scheduled for five weeks.