A mini-series about South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela is being planned by three production houses and will include input from his family, the BBC reported on Monday.
According to his grandson, Kweku Mandela, the series would not paint the grandfather as “Mandela the saint” but rather is looking to “unravel Mandela the man.”
According to the grandson, when he first heard about the mini-series being planned, Nelson Mandela asked: “How much am I getting paid?”
The family will provide information to the show's producers and writers who will also source material from existing books about Mandela, including his own writings.
Shooting is expected to begin in South Africa this year. There are three production companies behind the project: Britain's Left Bank Pictures, Canada's Blue Ice Films and South Africa's Out of Africa Entertainment.
While casting has not yet begun, one of the writers on the project will be Nigel Williams, who wrote the 2005 Helen Mirren mini-series, Elizabeth I.
Mandela, now 93 and frail, became South Africa's first black president in 1994, after the end of white-minority rule.
He sat in jail for 27 years during apartheid for his role in fighting the regime. His efforts to bring about a non-racial and democratic country earned him the Nobel peace prize in 1993.
– Sapa-dpa