The rhetoric of sainthood that surrounds Nelson Mandela is built on legendary details. This very sainthood erases other details and presents no mean challenge for the documentarist. Bestall’s ‘intimate portrait’ has approached the task by NOT interviewing the most authoritative source – the man himself. He appears only in archival footage, some of it very rare. So, without the stamp of Mandela’s words, what’s on offer?

Comrades, allies and even enemies introduce us to the shifts in the person who is Mandela, noting his strengths, blind spots and personal style, his growth, anger, regrets and strategic insight. This film points to the complexities behind all the representations we have received and there are interesting lessons in this approach. Stark contradictions in testimonies suggest that ‘truth’ is a construct, though not necessarily false.