Word: tsotsi
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...Written by novelist David Benioff and Skip Woods, Wolverine was directed by Gavin Hood, a South African who earlier made two exercises in political solemnity, Tsotsi and Rendition. The new movie has a sharper look and a smarter film sense, because Hood is surrounded by the sort of artist-technicians who can lend cinematic swank to almost any action picture. But that's now par for the course, and Wolverine doesn't rise above the level of familiar competence...
Raleigh is part of a new generation of South African filmmakers determined to take back the country's stories and invest them with a spirit that goes deeper than skin. He produced 2005's Tsotsi, a film about a township hoodlum who steals a car - and the rich black couple's baby in its back seat - which shattered once and for all the naive but, among outsiders, popular notion that all South Africa's stories can be framed in terms of black and white. Another is director Michael Raeburn, who has just released Triomf, a bleak examination of a poor...
...release. Those that have, flopped. Why? "Audiences like authenticity - something that's real and from the heart," says producer Raleigh. The truth is that no country is ever as simple as black and white, let alone one with South Africa's unrivalled ethnic mix and bloody history. When Tsotsi won its best foreign film Oscar in 2006, the cast and crew went to Mandela's house for a celebration. "After he congratulated us, he told us: 'We should be very careful of our South African stories,' " says Kenneth Nkosi, who played Tsotsi's friend Aap. "'Do not tell our stories...
South Africa's filmmakers are taking that advice to heart. They still crew and act for Hollywood, but the country now churns out a steady roll of its own excellent small films. The year before Tsotsi won its Oscar, South Africa missed out on one for Yesterday, the story of an HIV-infected mother bringing up her daughter in dirt-poor KwaZulu Natal. In 2007 came Bunny Chow, a hip black-and-white comedy about three comedians traveling to a festival that recalled early Spike Lee. Last year featured Jerusalema, a sophisticated thriller about the rise and fall...
With South Africa taking ownership of its stories, the country's best talent is sticking around to help with the telling. In the past, successful stars or filmmakers like Vosloo or Tsotsi director Gavin Hood would have left for Los Angeles. Charlize Theron, South Africa's biggest star, never even acted at home. But Nkosi, who was cast in Peter Jackson's upcoming alien blockbuster District 9, shot in Soweto last year, says that while he's happy to act for Hollywood, he has no wish to act in it. South Africa is too exciting. "We were shut away from...