By Ramona Flume

Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer) walked onstage at The Yarrow Theatre to a wild round of applause on January 27 to introduce what he says will be the most urgent and important film that he will ever make. A film, he says, that has become even more urgent and important in the complicated world we live in today. 

Troublemaker, screening in this year’s Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival, tells the life story of Nelson Mandela in his own voice, pulling from more than 70 hours of recorded interviews with the legendary South African activist and his autobiography’s ghost writer, Richard Stengel. The biopic (featuring animations by Thabang Lehobye alongside rare archival footage) is a vital reminder that collective action can, in fact, change the course of history. Another reminder of “the power of action” was present in the audience: the 91-year-old Mac Maharaj — the famed South African freedom fighter featured in Fuqua’s film who was responsible for smuggling Mandela’s memoirs out of the prison where he spent 27 years. 

Maharaj, along with many of the film’s crew, had flown in from South Africa for the Park City premiere, and Fuqua asked them to join him onstage at for the post-premiere Q&A. “I look upon my life as a continuous privilege,” Maharaj says. “And meeting Antoine has been part of that privilege.” The pair clicked immediately. “We seemed to be on the same wavelength because we see the world as desperately in need of conversation. … And Antoine is an artist and craftsman who is telling us stories to help us to listen to each other.”

Nelson Mandela — whose given name, Rolihlahla, is translated from his native Xhosa as “troublemaker” — carries a legacy that truly defied the odds. And Fuqua’s comprehensive film spans several chapters of the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s unbelievable life, from his childhood in rural South Africa to his infamous fight against the repressive apartheid regime (that led to his globally condemned imprisonment) to his unprecedented election as South Africa’s first democratic president. The result is an unbelievable work that shows the real impact of what one troublemaker can do in a society divided by fear and prejudice.

The film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival seems like a pivotal opportunity for a new generation to plug into Mandela’s story and to see real proof that something can be done, that a revolution can succeed, and the dial of history can actually be moved forward.

“I think legacy should never be cast in stone,” Maharaj says. “It should never be allowed to calcify. I think every generation should interrogate the experience of people in the past. … And what Antoine has done is to look at Mandela and ask, ‘What is he trying to tell us?’ Every generation, and person, must answer that for themselves when they come face to face with oppression,” he says. 

One of Nelson Mandela’s lines in the film that touched Fuqua in particular was: “My freedom and your freedom are linked. They can’t be separated.” 

“The faces aren’t just Black. They’re Black and white,” Fuqua says about the footage from the anti-apartheid marches and protests seen in the film. “It’s a stark reminder of the power we have when we come together to fight for the right reasons. To stand up for each other, for justice, and for peace, by any means necessary.” 

This stirring documentary reminds us that history doesn’t unfold in a straight line, but it does honor the strength of exemplary individuals like Mandela who dare to speak truth to power. And the fight to elevate our personal consciousness and widen our collective horizons for the betterment of all people (not just the white and the wealthy) has never been more prescient.