At Cannes earlier today, Harvey Weinstein unveiled The Weinstein Company’s 2013 lineup of upcoming films, to attendees, and one of the films on the company’s slate is Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Idris Elba’s Nelson Mandela biopic, directed by Justin Chadwick, which highlights Mandela’s early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison.

S&A isn’t at Cannes this year, so we obviously weren’t present for the showcase. But thankfully Twitch Film was and they published a write-up of the event, which included trailers for each.

So they got to see the first trailer for Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, and seem impressed by it:

Perhaps the most compelling trailer was the two-and-a-half minutes put together from Justin Chadwick’s upcoming Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom. “This is not your dad’s HBO Mandela film,” quipped Harvey after the trailer ran. I honestly have no idea what that means, but the film, starring Idris Elba as the South African leader, did look to be a very well executed period piece and plenty exciting. The movie is dated for November 29 and will surely be in the awards picture if it lives up to the potential seen today. 

The trailer shown should be online soon we hope. It’s a film that we’ve seen absolutely nothing of, since it’s all been under-wraps.

Also unveiled for the first time was a poster for the film, which you can see below.

Naomie Harris co-stars as Winnie Mandela in a film that producers have said will have an “epic sweep,” from a script written by Gladiator, Shadowlands and Les Miserables writer, William Nicholson.