Sam Jackson Aims to Tell African Pirate Stories

Life rights for chief negotiator Andrew Mwangura set for feature film

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Friday, May 8th 2009 at 12:27 AM

Variety is reporting Samuel L. Jackson and his Uppity Films have joined forces with Andras Hamori's H20 Motion Pictures to secure life rights of Andrew Mwangura, a negotiator between pirates and the owners of vessels hijacked off the coast of Africa.

Jackson has set his sights on playing Mwangura in a feature film centered on the story of the man who serves as a journalist and ex-marine engineer who runs the Seafarers' Assistance Programme, a nonprofit group that offers humanitarian aid to all seafarers. A quick search around the Internet directed me to an article at The Scotsman headlined "Pirates stolen your supertanker off Africa? Here's the man to speak to" with an interview with Mwangura from March of 2008, saying he lives in a two-room shack and relies on internet cafes to communicate with his global network of contacts.

Mwangura isn't paid for his negotiating work; he makes his living as a freelance journalist. At one time he had 40 volunteers working for him, but the number is now nine after his organization turned out to be riddled with informers.

There is no word on who will write the script or what direction it will take, but the Variety article says that while Hamori was in Mombassa negotiating the rights deal Mwangura brokered the freedom of crew and cargo of the Ukrainian ship V.S. Faina for $3.4 million. The price was high because the pirates discovered a secret cache of Russian tanks. I just wonder how much fiction will fall into this non-fiction story, but it could be interesting.