Nelson Mandela's life story to be turned into TV drama
'Madiba' will show
how Mandela fought the apartheid system and became South Africa's first
black president after 27 years in jail
The life of Nelson Mandela will be the
subject of a six-hour mini-series, titled Madiba. His grandson Kweku
Mandela will be a co-producer. Photograph: Mike Hutchings/Reuters
Photograph: Mike Hutchings/Reuters
Mandela, now 93, has given his approval for the six-hour drama, which is due to go into production later this year, shooting primarily on location in South Africa.
Casting is still being finalised. Mandela has previously been played on screen by Morgan Freeman in Clint Eastwood's 2009 film Invictus.
The producers are in talks with broadcasters in the UK and US about the project.
The scripts are based on two books optioned by the producers, the autobiographical Conversations with Myself and Nelson Mandela By Himself, which features authorised quotations. The programme-makers have also been given access to the archives of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Entitled Madiba, the clan name from the Xhosa tribe by which Mandela has often been known, the mini-series is being co-produced by his grandson, Kweku Mandela, and the UK film-makers who were behind The Queen and The Damned United.
Kweku Mandela said Madiba would not just be another project painting his grandfather as "Mandela the saint", but would seek to credit the many people who helped shape his life story.
He added that the producers were also seeking to educate a new generation about the system of apartheid through which South Africa's white minority oppressed the black majority for more than 40 years up to 1990. The first democratic elections open to all races were held in 1994.
The series will also examine Mandela's relationship with his mother and her impact on his character. Mandela's father died when he was a child.
Born in 1918, Mandela joined anti-apartheid organisation the African National Congress – which celebrated its 100th anniversary at the weekend – in the mid-1940s and founded the ANC youth league with others including Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo.
Mandela qualified as a lawyer in the early 1950s and opened a law firm in partnership with Tambo, while the pair continued to campaign against apartheid.
As resistance to the National Party's apartheid regime grew, the ANC was outlawed in 1960, and four years later Mandela and other leaders of the anti-apartheid movement were sentenced to life imprisonment. He spent 18 years of his imprisonment at Robben Island before being transferred to the South African mainland.
A campaign to free Mandela became the focus of international opposition to apartheid, with a regime of sanctions imposed on South Africa. In the face of this mounting international pressure, in 1990 South African president FW De Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, with Mandela released from prison on 11 February that year.
Three years later Mandela and De Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize and in 1994 the ANC won South Africa's first multiracial democratic election, with Mandela becoming president. He stepped down in 1999 and retired from public life in 2004.
Madiba is being written by Nigel Williams, the British novelist, screenwriter and playwright, whose previous TV credits include an adaptation of his own novel The Wimbledon Poisoner and Elizabeth I, starring Helen Mirren.
The mini-series is being co-produced by UK film-makers Andy Harries and Marigo Kehoe through their production company, Left Bank Pictures, which has credits including the BBC's Swedish detective drama Wallander. Harries and Kehoe have previously collaborated on projects including The Queen and The Damned United.
Harries told the Guardian that during a research trip to South Africa for the project in May 2011, he and Kehoe had a brief meeting with Mandela to discuss the mini-series and get his personal blessing. They found him at his home in Johannesburg, sitting "in his armchair in his lounge reading the paper".
Harries said he believed a "quality six-hour TV series with a budget of over $3m an hour will be able to give the story the space and breadth it needs".
He added: "There is a whole generation of people who weren't even born when Nelson Mandela finally walked free from prison after 27 years in captivity in the early 1990s. His story is one that they need to know
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