MANDELA: LIFE

Will be an unprecedented and exclusively authorized five-partseries founded on Nelson Mandela’s extraordinary life and the most dramatic period in South African history – 1984 to 1994, the ‘deadly decade’ during which thousands of people died in political violence. A decade that began with Nelson Mandela in prison, and ended with him being elected President of South Africa after the country’s first democratic election.

Directed by acclaimed South African film-maker Mandla Dube, the series is uniquely authorized by the Nelson Mandela Foundation with exclusive permission to archivally recreate Nelson Mandela’s voice from his personal archive and to feature previously unreleased material and unpublished letters written by him from prison.

The series has been in development for two years and will be ready for global release on
Freedom Day, 27 April 2025, the 31st anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic election.

Thirty years after South Africa transitioned to democracy and a decade after Nelson
Mandela’s death, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the official custodian of his personal
archive, has granted its long-time creative partner and originating publisher of five books
with and about Nelson Mandela, Blackwell & Ruth, exclusive permission to create the
series. Blackwell & Ruth is partnering with renowned South African filmmaker Mandla Dube
as director, and will co-produce with his production company Pambilimedia.

MANDELA: LIFE will be Nelson Mandela’s own story ‘in his own words, narrated in his voice’.
Made in collaboration with the archive and research team Nelson Mandela personally
authorised in 2004, Verne Harris, Razia Saleh and Sahm Venter, it aims to be the most
rigorously researched, in-depth and personal long-form documentary portrait of his life ever
produced.

The series will be founded on unique access to an unmatched trove of public and private
material assembled by the Nelson Mandela Foundation archival team and Blackwell & Ruth
over the past 20 years. It includes significant previously unpublished personal documents
written by Mandela in prison, substantial unseen archival film footage, new and original
footage, audio recordings, translations of transcripts of secret state recordings and many
hundreds of pages of Mandela’s private writing and correspondence which will provide the
basis for a profoundly personal narration.

The series is being created in a world defined by violence, precarity, fundamentalism and
division. It is a moment when Nelson Mandela’s story and the dramatic events that unfolded
in South Africa from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s can serve to inspire a new generation
to believe that even the deepest generational division and hatred can be overcome by
representative and ethical leadership, and by people standing up bravely in the pursuit of
justice and a more compassionate world.

World rights are available and represented by Dogwoof who will launch the project at the
Cannes Marche Du Film this month.

STATEMENTS
Verne Harris, Acting Chief Executive, Nelson Mandela Foundation
Kneo Mokgopa – Narrative Development Manager, Nelson Mandela Foundation
Mandla Dube – Director, MANDELA: LIFE

“This will be the first documentary or documentary series that we’ve authorized as the
Nelson Mandela Foundation and in revisiting his life, especially with the challenge of
surfacing his voice, we have authorized the use of archival materials to translate what he
wrote to himself into a voice that people can hear.”
– Verne Harris
[Clip 1] https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/gmnQYMbjSx

“For the Nelson Mandela Foundation this series allows us to share with the world the
contents of archival material that very often we’ve been searching for for many years, and
have now found; content in Nelson Mandela’s own words which is very rich and offers new
insights into his life.”
– Verne Harris
[Clip 2]  https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/7cCVWHGibY

“One of the values that informs the project is respect for Nelson Mandela’s wish that we
interrogate the archive and interrogate his life. Over many years I would go to him with
materials that I’d found difficult and ask, “Are you sure you’re comfortable that this can be
put in the public domain?” And he would say to me, and also to my colleagues, “Decisions
on public access should be handled by professionals. It’s your task.” And the most important
directive he gave us was: “You don’t need to protect me.”
– Verne Harris
[Clip 3] https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/6W5N8qr7DZ

“The significance of South Africans telling this story is hugely important. This is a precious
story. It’s important. It’s needed. Especially in these times when we’re looking around the
world and leadership is missing, here we have a story that tells us how incredible leadership
can come from the most dire circumstances.”
– Kneo Mokgopa
[Clip 4] https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/r4VTuJAg4v

“We are decolonizing the lens and the framework of who Nelson Mandela was. There are
certain nuances and subtleties that we haven’t seen in films made by international
filmmakers about Nelson Mandela, because there’s a certain voice that comes with being a
child of the soil.”
– Mandla Dube
[Clip 5] https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/ieMioujG9e

“If one looks at the books that have been published about Nelson Mandela, the movies,
previous documentaries, whatever the intentions of the creators might have been,
overwhelmingly they are a mediation of Black South African experience by white voices,
very often not South African. And so, for us it’s really important that the work we’re about
to embark on is driven by a Black South African and that the team is a South African team
that has a particular ear for that voice that we’re trying to listen to and share with the
world.”
– Verne Harris
[Clip 6] https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/mt00u5fj2K

“When I first heard the recreated voice, I was expecting a reenactment, maybe an actor, but
to hear him speaking in the way his voice has been recreated gave me literal physical chills.
Hearing him meant the world for me.”
– Kneo Mokgopa
[Clip 7] https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/L6YUqhVZRK