Exciting appointment for Mandela International Film Festival

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Danette Breitenbach

The honorary global ambassador of the 2015 Mandela International Film Festival is Dr Maya Angelou - playwright, producer, director, best-selling author, civil rights activist, educator and historian.

The festival will take place from 3-12 December 2015 in Port Elizabeth and is expected to be the biggest film festival in the southern hemisphere. The Eastern Cape Government and the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency are backing the project.

Photo via Oprah.com

First global ambassador

At the 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival, currently taking place in New York, His Royal Highness, Nkosi Zwelivelile (Mandla), chairperson of the Mandela International Film Festival and grandson of the late Nelson Mandela invited Angelou to be the first global ambassador of the festival. "Your tireless endeavours towards the civil right movement are those that echo that of my grandfather, which is why we have invited you to be the first Global Ambassador," he said.

The inaugural festival will honour the film, entertainment and media legends that made a continuous effort to keep South Africa top of mind during the apartheid era as South Africa celebrate 20 years of freedom and independence.

Angelou wrote and recited a poem in honour of Nelson Mandela at the time of his death. She met Mandela in the 1960s when she lived in Cairo. In her poem, 'His Day is Done', she mourns Mandela's death, praises him as a modern-day David who slew a mighty Goliath and a Gideon, who freed the South African people.