Film & Stage
Landmark
Gavin Hood
born 1963
Directed Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
His Tsotsi took the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film — the first and so far only South African film to win it.
Gavin Hood trained as a lawyer at Witwatersrand before going to film school in Los Angeles, and made his name with A Reasonable Man, about a herdsman who kills a child he believes to be a malevolent spirit, and what a court schooled in one worldview does with a defendant from another.
Tsotsi, released in 2005, follows six days in the life of a young Johannesburg gangster who hijacks a car and finds a baby on the back seat. It is adapted from Athol Fugard's only novel, relocated from the 1950s to the era of Aids and shack settlements, and shot largely in Alexandra township with a cast of mostly unknown actors speaking tsotsitaal. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006 — the first and still the only South African film to do so.
He went on to direct in Hollywood, including X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Ender's Game, and returned to political filmmaking with Eye in the Sky, on the decision-making behind a drone strike, and Official Secrets, on the British translator who leaked the memo about spying on the UN Security Council before the Iraq war.
Tsotsi, released in 2005, follows six days in the life of a young Johannesburg gangster who hijacks a car and finds a baby on the back seat. It is adapted from Athol Fugard's only novel, relocated from the 1950s to the era of Aids and shack settlements, and shot largely in Alexandra township with a cast of mostly unknown actors speaking tsotsitaal. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006 — the first and still the only South African film to do so.
He went on to direct in Hollywood, including X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Ender's Game, and returned to political filmmaking with Eye in the Sky, on the decision-making behind a drone strike, and Official Secrets, on the British translator who leaked the memo about spying on the UN Security Council before the Iraq war.
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