Sema Fonkem 31 Jan 2026

Melania Trump’s documentary which cost Amazon approximately $75m for production and marketing will not be showing in South African Cinema.

The documentary has seen very low ticket sales in the United States of America and globally. From the look of things, no one really cares about it.

The Director of the documentary Brett Ratner was accused of sex crimes and cancelled during Me Too movement in 2017 and this is his first production ever since then. South Africa is a very human rights driven country and this brings an unpleasant taste for the documentary.

It is not clear why the South African distributors such as Filmfinity, Nu Metro and Ster-Kinekor have boycotted the documentary but rocket science is not needed to know that the story is not high value for ticket sales.

Many people across social media are saying Melania does have any impact on the international society as the First Lady of the United States and therefore seeing her movie will be a waste of funds. Others say Donald Trump’s recent crackdown on immigration and brutality from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made the Trump family very unpopular so much that they are disgusted by anything from them.

Majority of Americans are foreigners so who will want to go watch the documentary of an immigrant whose husband’s administration is busy maltreating other migrants who are making their way to the US for greener pastures? Definitely no one.

Majority of South Africans are anti-Israel and the Trumps support for the country does not make it any easier for South Africans to buy a tickets to go and watch Melania.

South Africans are still not over the G20 2025 saga and the fact that Trump has decided not to invite South Africa for the 2026 G20 summit to be hosted in Florida. This is really a bad timing for Melania’s documentary.

South Africans are also aware of Trump’s visa sanctions to third world countries and it is just completely impossible for citizens of the rainbow nation who carry the spirit of Ubuntu to give their support to Melania and anything with a Trump stamp.

Filmfinity, Nu Metro and Ster-Kinekor are clever enough not to offend their stakeholders (investors and audience) by accepting Melania’s documentary.

The investment by Amazon is one of the entity’s worst financial decisions and PR move since its existence.