More lady news coming out of Cannes.

Uma Thurman will star as controversial anti-gay activist Anita Bryant in Anita.  Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman will direct from a screenplay by Chad Hodge.  The film follows the singer and orange juice spokeswoman who, after allowing a gay screenwriter into her home, is forced to confront her past as an anti-gay Christian crusader who successfully campaigned to overturn a gay rights law in Florida and whose polarizing views destroyed her show biz career in the process. (via Deadline)

Image Entertainment has acquired all U.S. rights to Winnie Mandela at the 2013 Cannes International Film Festival. The film is an adaptation of Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob’s biography Winnie Mandela: A Life and is written and directed by Darrell J. Roodt. Winnie Mandela stars Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls; Sex in the City) and Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow; Red Tails; Iron Man) and will be released in theaters Fall 2013. 

Winnie Mandela explores the personal and political life of the wife of renowned activist and former South African President, Nelson Mandela (Terrence Howard). The film tells the compelling story of one woman’s journey as she fights for the freedom of the man she loves and for the freedom of her people during the Apartheid era. Winnie Mandela depicts the struggle to keep the Mandela dream alive amidst her husband’s life imprisonment, her own time in solitary confinement, and her battle to overcome controversies that followed her through the years. (via Deadline)

The Weinstein Co. has inked a deal for Stephen Frears’ Philomena paying $6.5 million for the U.S., Canada and Spain.  The film stars Judi Dench as Philomena Lee, an Irish woman who searches for her son that she was forced to give up for adoption as a teenager, and is based on BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith’s 2009 book, “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee.” (via Hollywood Reporter)