Mandela film wins award at Aspen Filmfest

The film, titled Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, which premiered at the Toronto film festival last month, received the Audience Favourite Feature Award in the United States on Wednesday night.It was up against The Fight Estate, August, Osage Country, Nebraska, and One Chance. Some of those movies included actresses Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep.In the Mandela production, Idris Elba played Mandela while Naomi Harris played Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. South African actress Terry Pheto co-starred in the film.

The Aspen Filmfest, which is an affiliate of Aspen Film, one of Colorado’s most active film arts organisations, is an internationally recognised film festival.

“Even though the Aspen Filmfest is a small festival, it is very prestigious. It has the best of the line-up for Oscar contenders for the year-end in the run up to the 2014 Academy Awards,” said Anant Singh, the film producer and head of Cape Town Film Studios .

“We are delighted that [this movie] came out tops, especially in contention with these quality films.”