Hudson to star as Winnie Mandela in "Winnie"

By Siewaun
Reference: Variety

Singer/Actress Jennifer Hudson, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in 2006 movie "Dreamgirls," will star as Winnie Mandela in veteran South African award-winning director Darrell J. Roodt's "Winnie." She is also expected to sing the movie's theme song.

Andre Pieterse, Roodt and Paul L. Johnson wrote a script based on the Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob biography - Winnie Mandela: A Life.

Movie will take an in-depth and intimate look at Winnie Mandela’s personal and political life, which depicted her as the mother and wife who was a steadfast supporter of her activist husband and who was jailed herself for campaigning for his release and fighting against apartheid, and her subsequently tarnished image for being in association with a bodyguard who murdered a 14-year old alleged informer and later convicted of fraud.

Andre Pieterse is producing alongside Canada's Equinoxe Films' Michael Mosca.

Shooting will start May 30 in the South African locations of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Transkei and Robben Island, where the future president spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.