The Man Who Drove with Mandela (DVD)

In 1962, a man known as “The Black Pimpernel” travelled incognito across South Africa organizing armed rebellion against the apartheid regime. Wanted by police for seditious activity, his cover was that he was the chauffeur to a well-dressed and elegant white man in a gleaming Austin Westminster. The black man was Nelson Mandela. The white man was Cecil Williams.

We all know what happened to Mandela following his arrest. But what happened to the man he was with? The Man Who Drove With Mandela, directed by Greta Schiller (Before Stonewall, Paris Was a Woman) tells the story of South Africa’s liberation struggle from a new and unexpected perspective: that of Cecil Williams – prominent theatre director; committed freedom-fighter; gay man.