Jennifer Hudson's Winnie Mandela Trailer Hits the Web—Watch!

J.Hud's long-postponed drama about the wife of Nelson Mandela is finally seeing the light of day

By Josh Grossberg Aug 08, 2013 1:15 PMTags
Winnie MandelaYoutube

Jennifer Hudson is playing a dream girl of the political kind.

The trailer for the Oscar winner's long-delayed film, Winnie Mandela, has finally hit the Web and finds Hudson taking on the iconic role of South African leader Nelson Mandela's wife in a biopic of her life.

The film, which costars Terrence Howard as the legendary anti-apartheid activist, chronicles Mandela's then-missus from her childhood and marriage to Mandela through his incarceration as a political prisoner and her own struggle to tear down the racist South African state.

Along the way, Winnie's own efforts to carry on Mandela's mantle leads to her being harassed by South African security forces and spending more than a year in solitary confinement.

The drama also delves into her divorce due to her own infidelity as well as the accusations of violence and murder that plagued her in her later years.

Winnie was actually filmed in the spring of 2010 and premiered at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival but received a weak reception, prompting producers to postpone a theatrical release Stateside.

Youtube

But it's reemergence could not be more timely in light of Nelson Mandela's recent health setbacks. At the age of 95, South Africa's first black president was hospitalized on June 8 with a recurring lung infection that left him initially close to death in critical but stable condition.

But thankfully Mandela's condition has since improved, and South Africans and the world continue to pray for a speedy recovery.

Winnie Mandela is scheduled to hit U.S. theaters on Sept. 6.

After that, Hudson is slated to costar opposite Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett in the drama musical Black Nativity, coming out in November.