Cinemas in South Africa will not be showing the documentary about US First Lady Melania Trump, which is due to be released globally on Friday.
The South African distributor, Filmfinity, has decided not to release the film, according to its head of sales and marketing, who spoke to the New York Times and South Africa-based outlet News24. The company did not clearly state the reasons behind the decision.
The documentary, Melania, is not being promoted on the websites of South Africa’s major cinema chains. One independent cinema in Cape Town said it had been contacted by Filmfinity and instructed not to list the film.
As part of the film’s promotion, Melania Trump rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
Amazon has reportedly paid $35m (£25m) to market the documentary, which follows Melania Trump during the 20 days leading up to her husband’s second inauguration on 20 January last year. It is also believed Amazon paid around $40m for the rights to the film.
“Based on recent developments, we’ve taken the decision to not go ahead with a theatrical release in territory,” Filmfinity’s Thobashan Govindarajulu was quoted as saying by the New York Times. He told News24 that the decision was taken “given the current climate”, without elaborating further.
Attempts to obtain further comment from Filmfinity — which describes itself as the leading film distributor in southern Africa — have so far been unsuccessful.
The independent Labia cinema in Cape Town confirmed that Filmfinity had contacted them to say the film would not be screening.
Showtimes for Melania are not listed on the websites of South Africa’s two main cinema chains, Ster Kinekor and Nu Metro. Ster Kinekor’s publicity page for the film is inaccessible. Nu Metro promoted the documentary on Instagram two weeks ago, and its website still hosts a page for the film, but without any screening times — unlike its listing for the drama Hamnet, which is also released in South Africa on Friday.
Relations between the US and South Africa have deteriorated sharply over the past year. Since returning to power, Donald Trump has promoted the widely discredited claim that there is a “white genocide” against South Africa’s Afrikaner community. Last May, he confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on the issue during a tense meeting at the White House.
Trump has also imposed high tariffs on South African goods and cut aid programmes. Tensions were further heightened by South Africa’s role in bringing a case against Israel to the International Court of Justice. The US has rejected allegations of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as “baseless”.
