Madiba everywhere at Cannes

There are so many Nelson Mandela stories being produced that one can forgive the confusion at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Hollywood Reporter magazine said last week that international buyers at the prestigious festival were "circling" a documentary called Mandela's Children (narrated by the former president himself) by grandson Kweku Mandela and Kemal Akhtar.

But it seems there is competition for international support from two different documentaries on Madiba.

Even the National Film and Video Foundation's Naomi Mokhele, who is in Cannes, was unaware of this, saying that only Mandela: The World That Made Him, by Jacqueline Fox, was at the festival.

Fox's documentary, shot in the Eastern Cape late last year, is due to be delivered to buyers by July.



The London and Los Angeles- based Stealth Media Group (a distribution, film and television sales company) had joined Fox's project.

However, The Hollywood Reporter, which interviewed Akhtar, said that Mandela's Childre n had created such a buzz because "it features what will probably be the last extensive interview that Mandela, now 94, will give on camera".

Some of his grandchildren's stories will also be included in the documentary.

UK-based Kaleidoscope Film Distribution had begun pre-sales for the documentary.

Fox said her team had hosted five different 20-minute screenings for international buyers and press.

She said: "It was really amazing . obviously there is big interest in him and where he comes from. Gathering from the reactions afterwards, they were blown away."

They were still editing the documentary, but had found "fantastic material".

Mandela's memoir Conversations with Myself was the inspiration for the documentary, according to Fox.

"You know how everybody says there were so many people that informed him - so we wanted to give the people of the Eastern Cape a voice on what really formed him and his spiritual journey."




SOURCE : TIMESONLINE