Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is both celebrated and condemned in South Africa’s modern history. Two of her grandchildren, Princess Swati Dlamini-Mandela and Princess Zaziwe Mandela-Manaway, confront that contradiction in a new Netflix series, The Trials of Winnie Mandela, a documentary currently streaming only in Africa.
In the trailer the sisters voice the difficulty of their project: “How do you ask your grandmother, are you a murderer, are you a kidnapper?” They say they tried to produce an even-handed account. “I’m so proud of this work, because it is not just a myopic view of a person that we love, but also who is complex, and has had a complex history,” Dlamini-Mandela says.
Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years in prison to become South Africa’s first Black president and a worldwide symbol of reconciliation. Winnie, who remained a leading activist while he was incarcerated, has long stood in a more contested place: a figure who inspired many but was also accused of promoting township violence during the 1980s. Members of a group tied to her, known as the Mandela United Football Club, were implicated in vigilante abductions and killings of people accused of informing, including minors.
In 1997 Winnie appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Desmond Tutu. Pressed about the violent episodes, she said, “Things went horribly wrong…for that I am deeply sorry.” The commission concluded she was “politically and morally accountable” for crimes committed by members of her bodyguard network.
Filming began before her death in 2018 at age 81, allowing the filmmakers to include Winnie’s own responses on camera. The granddaughters point out how differently the family treats Nelson and Winnie: he is often cast as a saint while she has been portrayed as a sinner. Pressed on that divide, Winnie insisted the question of saint or sinner was between her and God.
Her activism came with severe personal cost. With Nelson imprisoned, she raised their children and kept up anti-apartheid efforts, becoming a frequent target of the security state. In 1969 she spent 491 days in solitary confinement and endured torture she later said left permanent scars. She was repeatedly jailed, had her Soweto home raided and was banished to Brandfort, a remote town, as the regime sought to limit her influence.
Her combative stance drew criticism, even within the African National Congress. A 1986 speech was interpreted as condoning “necklacing,” the brutal burning of suspected collaborators. She was also subject to intense public scrutiny and vilification over alleged affairs while her husband was imprisoned. The marriage deteriorated after Nelson’s release; they divorced in 1996 amid heavy public blame directed at her.
More recently, younger South Africans have begun reassessing Winnie through a feminist lens. Playwright Momo Matsunyane, who directed The Cry of Winnie Mandela, argues a male comrade would not have faced the same personal attacks and that accusations about an affair were used to discredit her. Matsunyane says it’s possible to hold two truths at once: Winnie may have been connected to ruthless acts, but she was also fiercely resilient and repeatedly risked her life against an inhumane system.
Signs of a public rehabilitation are visible: thousands mourned her death outside her home in 2018, her likeness appears on T-shirts and murals, a major Johannesburg road bears her name, and the hashtag #SheDidn’tDieSheMultiplied trended among young supporters.
For her granddaughters, memories are intimate and ordinary: Sunday cooking, hugs, advice and warm family moments. “We were kids, so we didn’t realize that we were Nelson and Winnie’s grandchildren,” Mandela-Manaway recalls. Their mother, Zenani, sought to keep their upbringing normal, but the family name sometimes brought stigma and isolation.
The documentary attempts to hold those tensions together: the public record of violence and accountability, the repression she endured under apartheid, and the private role she played as mother and grandmother. By centering family interviews and archival material, the series aims neither to absolve nor to condemn but to deepen understanding of a life lived at the center of a brutal struggle.