2 May 2006. A part of the movie Goodbye Bafana will be taped on Robben Island, where former South African president Nelson Mandela spent most of his 27 years in jail for his leading role in anti-apartheid struggle. The movie tells about the friendship between Mandela and his white prison guard James Gregory.
Earlier reports said filming on the World Heritage site had been hampered because the island's management demanded various requirements. But according to the newspaper The Cape Argus, filming on the island will start in six weeks. The film is based on the memoir Gregory wrote of how Mandela altered his initially racist perceptions during the 20 years that he guarded him at Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison, where Mandela was finally released in 1990.
Gregory, a white Afrikaner who regarded blacks as sub-human, grew up on a farm in the Transkei, where he learned to speak Xhosa at an early age. This made him an ideal choice to become the warder in charge of Mandela and his anti-apartheid comrades because Gregory could spy on them without them knowing it.
But the ploy backfired, according to the film's website. Through Mandela's influence, Gregory's allegiance gradually shifted from racism to outright support of Mandela in his quest for a democratically free South Africa.
Tsotsi star
One of the actors starring in the movie is the South African actress Terry Pheto, who played Miriam in the Oscar-winning film Tsotsi. In Goodbye Bafana she plays Mandela's daughter Zinzi. Dennis Haysbert (President David Palmer in 24) will feature as Mandela and Joseph Fiennes, known as William Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love, will play James Gregory. Gregory"s wife Gloria is played by Diane Kruger, who played Helen of Troy in Troy. South African singer Johnny Clegg has been asked to write a song for the movie.
Cape Town locations for filming include Long Street, Observatory, Plumstead (where Gregory lived), the former Roeland Street Prison and Robben Island.
Newspaper The Sunday Times said Mandela himself neither endorsed nor objected the movie, directed by the award-winning Danish director Bille August. The film will be released in 2007. |
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