Winnie Mandela, former wife of South African political leader Nelson Mandela, has expressed grave concern over the new movie Winnie, which stars Jennifer Hudson in the lead role.
The film, directed by Darrell J. Roodt, documents her life and marriage to the former South African president.
In a letter sent from her attorney, Bowman Gilfillan, to the film's producers, Winnie Mandela focuses on the fact that she was never consulted for the project.
"It is difficult to understand how a production bearing the name of an individual who has not been consulted at all could ever be appropriate or tell the full story of that individual's life as media reports suggest this production is intended to," the letter reads.
According to the U.K. magazine new!, Roodt's film was already a source of controversy in South Africa due to the casting of Hudson in the lead role.
Members of a South Africa actors union decried Hudson's casting in December 2009, insisting an actor from Mandela's native country should have been cast as the title character in a movie so important to South Africa's history.
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