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Nelson Mandela on film and TV: From Sidney Poitier to Terrence Howard (photo: Sidney Poitier as Nelson Mandela in ‘Mandela and de Klerk’) (See previous post: "Nelson Mandela Movies: ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,’ ‘Invictus.’") As found on the IMDb, here are a handful of other narrative big-screen films featuring Nelson Mandela: Darrell Roodt’s Winnie Mandela (2011), with Jennifer Hudson in the title role and Terrence Howard as Nelson Mandela. Pete Travis’ Endgame (2009), with Clarke Peters’ Mandela as less a martyred saint than a skillful realpolitik negotiator. This political drama also features Chiwetel Ejiofor, William Hurt, Jonny Lee Miller, Mark Strong, and Derek Jacobi. Zola Maseko’s 1950s-set Drum (2004), in which Mandela is played — for a change — by a South African actor, Lindani Nkosi. As reported by Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian, British filmmaker Peter Kosminsky (White Oleander, Wuthering Heights) "got into hot water a couple of years ago...

In film, the role of the former Anc activist and president of South Africa has traditionally been approached with great reverence

The voice. The gentle, mysterious smile. The walk – generally an older man's walk, across a garden, or presidential office, or prison exercise yard. The enigmatically polite manner: intimidating, even awe-inspiring for allies and adversaries alike. The list of actors who have tried all this is long: Morgan Freeman, David Harewood, Terrence Howard, Danny Glover, Sidney Poitier, Clarke Peters, Dennis Haysbert, Idris Elba – and Lindane Nkosi, the one South African actor who has managed to make some sort of impression as this character in Anglo-Hollywood circles, for a film called Drum, about the 1950s anti-apartheid campaign, that played at festivals in London and Cannes.

Nelson Mandela has been a role to be approached reverently, a difficult part and a career hurdle in some ways, like a royal figure in a Shakespearian play,...

Black South African cinema continues to excite and intrigue, especially for the uninitiated like myself, who are gradually getting familiar with the country's offerings. I'll leave the pro stuff to our friends at Africa Is A Country who cover politics, sports, entertainment, and more, for all of the African continent, with a special emphasis on South Africa. In the meantime, here's a trailer for an upcoming South African action drama I was just alerted to titled Zama Zama, from Kokamoya Productions, directed by Vickus Strijdom, and starring Lindani Nkosi, Presley Chweneyagae, Khulu M Skenjana, Renate Stuurman, Fumani Shilubana, Lebogang Inno, Mfundo Mdlalose,...

British-born star picked to play Nelson Mandela in biopic after casting agent says local actors lack stature for role

Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover, David Harewood, Dennis Haysbert, Terrence Howard, Clarke Peters, Sidney Poitier and now Idris Elba: all are actors who have been cast as Nelson Mandela – yet none is South African.

This is already a sore point for local performers, and now salt has been rubbed in the wound. Why do they never get the chance to play their national hero? Because they are too short, according to the country's top casting agent.

Mandela, a towering figure in every sense, is 6ft 4ins (1.93 metres) tall: actors in South Africa just don't measure up, says Moonyeenn Lee, who picked British-born Elba – star of The Wire and Luther – for a planned film adaptation of Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.

"I was free to cast a South African, and...