South Africa / 1992 / 110mins / Documentary / English

Mandela dramatically chronicles the life of a charismatic man from the rural spaces of South Africa. It captures his intimate moments, as well as his public ones, from massive rallies for his freedom to his inauguration as President of South Africa.

Angus Gibson

Angus Gibson, one of South Africa’s premier documentary filmmakers, is a founding member of Free Filmmakers, a film co-operative established in 1985 to create a relevant South African cinema. Since 1983, when he created his first television drama, he has produced, directed, and co-written numerous highly-acclaimed and internationally award-winning documentary series and TV dramas for British and South African television, including the Heartlines series, Yizo Yizo, and Soweto, a History. He also has a rich documentary feature film experience. He co-directed the Oscar-nominated authorized biography, Mandela, for Jonathan Demme’s production company. His diverse media projects, which include audio-visual contributions to the Apartheid Museum and the Hecter Pieterson Museum, have been influential in the anti-apartheid movement. His latest film Back to the Moon, an award-winning South African film set in 1958 Sophiatown was released in 2019. Learn More

Jo Menell

Jo Menell was born in Johannesburg in 1938. He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College Cambridge where he received a M.A. in Anthropology. From 1960-1970 he worked as a reporter, producer and director of current affairs documentaries for the BBC (Panorama) and ITV (This Week). In 1969 he produced and directed three one-hour documentaries on South Africa which resulted in his being banned by the South African government. From 1970-1973, he was the deputy director-general of Chilean National TV during the Salvador Allende regime. From 1973-80, he was a freelance director of documentaries for BBC, Globo (Brazil) and P.B.S. (USA). In 1981 he directed and produced The Life and Times of Bob Marley, the authorized story of Marley’s life, which was distributed worldwide and is available on DVD. In 1985 he co-produced and co-directed Haiti – Dreams of Democracy with Jonathan Demme. From 1990-2005 he lived in San Francisco, California, where he produced and directed documentaries for P.B.S. Channel 9. In 1996 he received an Oscar nomination for Mandela, an authorized biography, co-directed with Angus Gibson. In 2005 he returned to live in South Africa, and in 2006 made SHAG, a film that explores women’s views on sex and AIDS in present-day Cape Town. From 2008 to 2010, he directed and co-produced Street Talk with Richard Mills, a weekly documentary for Cape Town TV (CTV). In 2010 he made the documentary Thembi, the story of a young AIDS activist from Khayalitsha. Americans, Mongrels & Funky Junkies - The Life of Jo Menell, a film directed by Paul Yule, about Menell’s life, was shown at the Encounters Film festival in 2019. Learn More