SA’s ‘Tsotsi’ bags an Oscar

LOS ANGELES – South Africa overflowed with joy and pride yesterday after ‘Tsotsi’, a raw but compassionate depiction of a brutal gangster in Soweto, became the country’s first film to bag an Oscar.

President Thabo Mbeki led the euphoria, saying the feat showed that the domestic film industry “is beginning to make an enormous contribution to the world film industry”. Shot in the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto, the film tells the story of a 19-year-old “tsotsi”, or thug, who is confronted with the depravity of his life while caring for a baby that he found in the backseat of a car he hijacked after shooting the child’s mother.”It’s a story about hope, it’s a story about forgiveness, and it also deals with the issues that we are facing as South Africans: AIDS, poverty and crime,” said Presley Chweneyagae, the 21-year-old actor who plays Tsotsi.”But at the same time, it could take place anywhere in the world.”Directed and written by South African Gavin Hood (42), the film features a searing performance by Chweneyagae.Hood struck a nationalist theme as he accepted the award, shouting: ‘Nkosi sikelel’i Afrika’ and ‘amandla’ – “God Bless Africa” and “Freedom” in Zulu.”We may have foreign language films, but our stories are the same as your stories.They are about the human heart and emotion,” he said on receiving the award.Backstage, he could barely contain his glee.”I feel damn great, I feel truly overjoyed.It doesn’t get any better than this.This is the Olympics of filmmaking and I am so proud of everyone in South Africa who worked on this film,” he said.The film, distributed in North America by Walt Disney Co, was based on famed playwright Athol Fugard’s only novel, a 1950s tale about the dehumanising effects apartheid was having on the lives of black South Africans.With Fugard’s permission, Hood updated the story to the present day and made its main character a grown-up AIDS orphan.Hood has said the changes allowed him to present the despair of post-apartheid South Africa as well as the violence that lurks beneath the surface.But Hood also insisted that his aim was to tell a universal morality tale.”Storytelling is important to people,” he said backstage.”It’s not just about learning about other people, it’s also how we learn about ourselves and I hope we will do it more and more and also reveal our common humanity to the rest of the world.”Hood said being the first South African film to win an Oscar “tells me and all of us at home that we can do it.””What we want like everybody else is just to tell our stories,” he said.”This hopefully encourages more South African filmmakers to just keep telling their stories.”The other nominated films were the Italian family drama ‘Don’t Tell’, the French war story ‘Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)’, the German World War Two film ‘Sophie Scholl – The Final Days’, and the Palestinian film ‘Paradise Now’.- Nampa-Reuters-AFPShot in the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto, the film tells the story of a 19-year-old “tsotsi”, or thug, who is confronted with the depravity of his life while caring for a baby that he found in the backseat of a car he hijacked after shooting the child’s mother.”It’s a story about hope, it’s a story about forgiveness, and it also deals with the issues that we are facing as South Africans: AIDS, poverty and crime,” said Presley Chweneyagae, the 21-year-old actor who plays Tsotsi.”But at the same time, it could take place anywhere in the world.”Directed and written by South African Gavin Hood (42), the film features a searing performance by Chweneyagae.Hood struck a nationalist theme as he accepted the award, shouting: ‘Nkosi sikelel’i Afrika’ and ‘amandla’ – “God Bless Africa” and “Freedom” in Zulu.”We may have foreign language films, but our stories are the same as your stories.They are about the human heart and emotion,” he said on receiving the award.Backstage, he could barely contain his glee.”I feel damn great, I feel truly overjoyed.It doesn’t get any better than this.This is the Olympics of filmmaking and I am so proud of everyone in South Africa who worked on this film,” he said.The film, distributed in North America by Walt Disney Co, was based on famed playwright Athol Fugard’s only novel, a 1950s tale about the dehumanising effects apartheid was having on the lives of black South Africans.With Fugard’s permission, Hood updated the story to the present day and made its main character a grown-up AIDS orphan.Hood has said the changes allowed him to present the despair of post-apartheid South Africa as well as the violence that lurks beneath the surface.But Hood also insisted that his aim was to tell a universal morality tale.”Storytelling is important to people,” he said backstage.”It’s not just about learning about other people, it’s also how we learn about ourselves and I hope we will do it more and more and also reveal our common humanity to the rest of the world.”Hood said being the first South African film to win an Oscar “tells me and all of us at home that we can do it.””What we want like everybody else is just to tell our stories,” he said.”This hopefully encourages more South African filmmakers to just keep telling their stories.”The other nominated films were the Italian family drama ‘Don’t Tell’, the French war story ‘Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)’, the German World War Two film ‘Sophie Scholl – The Final Days’, and the Palestinian film ‘Paradise Now’.- Nampa-Reuters-AFP