TSOTSI - From Miramax, TSOTSI synopsis and credits!

This film is oscar material! See it! It's great, great and more great. Read the synopsis for the texture that is TSOTSI.
Written and Directed by Gavin Hood
Based on the novel by Athol Fugard

Official Selection of South Africa for Best Foreign Film – Academy Awards 2005
Audience Award – Toronto Film Festival 2005
Audience Award – Edinburgh Film Festival 2005
Best British Film – Edinburgh Film Festival 2005

Based on the book by acclaimed author and playwright, Athol Fugard, this deeply affecting film traces six days in the life of a young gang leader who steals a woman’s car—unaware, in his panic, that her baby is in the back seat. Pumping with the high energy of Zola’s ‘Kwaito’ music, ‘Tsotsi,’ an extraordinary and gritty contemporary portrait of ghetto life set amidst the sprawling Johannesburg townships, is ultimately a story of hope and the triumph of love over rage.

In a shantytown on the edges of Johannesburg, South Africa, 19-year-old Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) has repressed any memory of his past, including his real name. “Tsotsi” simply means “thug” or “gangster” in the street language of the ghetto. Orphaned at an early age and compelled to claw his way to adulthood alone, Tsotsi has lived a life of extreme social and psychological deprivation. A feral being with scant regard for the feelings of others, he has hardened himself against any feelings of compassion. Ruled only by impulse and instinct, he is fueled by the fear he instills in others. With no name, no past and no plan for the future, he exists only in an angry present. Tsotsi heads up his own posse of social misfits, Boston, a failed teacher (Mothusi Magano), Butcher, a cold-blooded assassin (Zenzo Ngqobe) and Aap, a dimwitted heavy (Kenneth Nkosi.)

One night, during an alcohol-fueled evening at a local shebeen (illicit liquor bar) Tsotsi is put under pressure by a drunken Boston to reveal something of his past; or at the very least, his real name. But Tsotsi reveals nothing. The questions evoke painful, long repressed memories that he would prefer to keep buried. Still, Boston keeps asking.

The other gang members sense a rising anger in Tsotsi and try to stop the interrogation, but Boston keeps pushing, prodding, digging. Suddenly, Tsotsi lashes out with his fists and beats Boston’s face to a pulp. The violence is brief but extreme. Tsotsi turns and flees into the night. He runs wildly, desperate to escape the pain of unwelcome images rising in his mind. By the time he stops running he has crossed from the shantytown into the more affluent suburbs of the city. He collapses under a tree. It is raining hard. A woman in a driveway is struggling to open her motorized gate with a faulty electronic remote. Tsotsi draws his gun. It’s an easy opportunity for an impromptu car jacking. As he races away in the woman’s silver BMW, he hears the cry of a child. There’s a 3-month-old baby in the back of the car. He loses control of the vehicle and crashes to a stop on the verge of a deserted road. The car is a write-off. Tsotsi staggers from the vehicle. The baby is screaming. He walks away. Then he turns back. The baby calms slightly when Tsotsi looks at it. This unsettles him. He hesitates. An unfamiliar feeling stirs within him: an impulse other than his pure instinct for personal survival. Suddenly, he gathers up the infant, shoves it into a large shopping bag and heads for the shantytown on foot.

Tsotsi does not reveal to anyone that he has the child. He hides it from his gang. At first he thinks he can care for it alone - keep it in his shack, feed it on condensed milk. But he soon realizes that he cannot cope. The baby screams constantly and his attempts to feed it fail miserably. At the community water tap, Tsotsi selects a young woman with a baby of her own and secretly follows her back to her home. Forcing his way in behind her, he makes the terrified woman breastfeed “his” baby at gunpoint.

The young mother, Miriam (Terry Pheto), is only a few years older than Tsotsi. She has recently lost her husband and lives alone with her baby, making ends meet as a seamstress. At first Miriam is very frightened by Tsotsi. But gradually she takes on the role of both mother to the baby and mentor to the desensitized young gangster. As their relationship tentatively progresses, Tsotsi is compelled to confront his own violent nature and to reveal his past.

THE TERM “TSOTSI” - ORIGINS AND MEANINGS

The word “tsotsi” means a black urban criminal, a street thug or gang member in the vernacular of black townships in South Africa. Its origin is possibly a corruption of the Sesotho word “tsotsa” meaning to dress flashily, zoot suits being originally associated with tsotsis. A male is called a tsotsi and a female tsotsi is called a noasisa. Tsotsis are usually part of the urban youth gang society that grew up on the streets of the ghetto. Their history goes back to the famous youth gangs of the 1930s in the Soweto township area outside Johannesburg. Former South African president, Nelson Mandela, in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, recalls them as part of the crowded township life in Johannesburg of the 1940’s.

CAST

PRESLEY CHWENEYAGAE (TSOTSI)
Presley has had no formal drama training. Prior to landing the lead role of “Tsotsi”, he acted in school plays and in community theatre projects. He has performed in a number of productions for North West Arts (now known as the Mmabana Arts Foundation) and appeared in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (as Puck) and in the play “Cards” at the Grahamstown Arts Festival. He made his TV acting debut in 2000 in “Orlando” for SABC TV. “Tsotsi” is his first feature film.

ZOLA (FELA)
“Zola” Bonginkosi Dlamini is a poet, actor and musician. Zola grew up in Soweto, in the ghetto called Zola, hence his name. Over the last few years, he has emerged in South Africa as the superstar of Kwaito. In 2000, he released his debut album “Mdlwembe” to massive critical acclaim. He followed this up with two other albums of Kwaito music, “Khokhovula” and “Bhambatha.” A number of his songs from these albums feature in the soundtrack of “Tsotsi.” Zola has won many South Africa music awards including, Artist of the Year 2002; Best Soundtrack for “Yizo Yizo”; Best music video for “Ghetto Scandalous”; Best Kwaito album “Mdlwembe.” In 2003 Zola starred in his own hit TV show “Zola 7” on SABC1. Zola has acted alongside Taye Diggs in the film “Drum.” His most recent feature film performance is as the gangster Fela in “Tsotsi.”

TERRY PHETO (MIRIAM)
Terry studied drama in South Africa at the Positive Arts Society, the Reeva Institution and Laten, specializing in improvisation. She starred in the plays “Amasiko” and “Park to Dawn” at the Grahamstown Arts Festival and in the award-winning “Devil Protest” at the Market Theatre Lab in Johannesburg and at the State Theatre in Pretoria. She is currently involved in creative and life skills workshops for community theatre groups with the Youth Drama Society. “Tsotsi” is Terry’s first feature film.

KENNETH NKOSI (AAP)
Kenneth had his first taste of acting in community theatre. In 1993 he enrolled at the Market Theatre Laboratory in Johannesburg. He made his stage debut two years later in the comedy “Afrodizzia” at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre. He has worked on stage at The Civic and at The Market Theatre in a variety of productions and is a member of the South African Sports Company and a field worker for the Market Theatre Laboratory. He is well known on television for his performances in the hit soap opera “Isidingo” and in “Saints, Sinners and Settlers” and for his appearances on ETV’s “The Toasty Show.” His film credits include “Fela’s TV.”

MOTHUSI MAGANO (BOSTON)
Mothusi’s interest in performance began when he was five years old at the Amabana Cultural Centre in Mafikeng when he appeared in a pantomime called “A Dragon for Dinner.” He went on to enroll at the Witwatersrand University’s School of Dramatic Art and appeared in the plays “Death and the Maiden” (as Gerardo Escobar) and “Little Shop of Horrors” (as Audrey Two). In 2003 he played Harry Lime in a production of “The Third Man” where agent Moonyeenn Lee spotted him and signed him up. He has since appeared in the films “Gums and Noses” and “Hotel Rwanda.”

ZENZO NGQOBE (BUTCHER)
Zenzo started training as an actor at the Mmabana Arts Foundation and performed in several plays and festivals, such as the Macufe Cultural Festival and the Grahamstown Arts Festival, where he performed in “King Lear” and in “Cards.” After leaving high school he moved to Pretoria where he did workshops and trained with the South African State Theatre where he appeared in “Hamlet” and “Julius Caesar.”

THE FILMMAKERS

ATHOL FUGARD, AUTHOR OF THE NOVEL “TSOTSI”

Tsotsi is the only novel ever written by the prolific playwright Athol Fugard. At its heart, the book is an internal psychological dialogue of the “Tsotsi” character on a journey of awakening that leads to the rediscovery of his memory and his humanity. Written in the early 1960’s around the time of his first stage success, The Blood Knot, and set in the 1950’s, it remained unpublished until 1980, by which time plays of Fugard’s like Boesman and Lena, Sizwe Banzi is Dead and Master Harold and the Boys had become big international stage successes.

Fugard was born in Middelburg, South Africa in 1932, the son of white English and Afrikaans parents. He was brought up with English as his mother tongue but describes himself as an Afrikaner writing in English. Educated at a Catholic school, technical college and the University of Cape Town, where his deep-rooted interest in the writings of Albert Camus began, he left university a few months shy of his final examinations in 1953, and worked as a seaman and newspaper reporter. After some acting experience he started writing plays about characters living in South Africa in the apartheid dominated culture of the day. In 1956 he married novelist and poet Sheila Meiring and they moved to Johannesburg where Fugard worked in a “Native Commissioners’ Court” as a clerk: an experience that made him acutely aware of the injustices of apartheid. Through his plays he brought to the rest of the world an understanding of the difficulties and beauty of his homeland, but his attacks on apartheid brought him into extreme conflict with the South African government. After The Blood Knot (written in 1961 and considered the first great play of its time) was produced in England, the government withdrew his passport for four years. His support in 1962 of an international boycott against the South African practice of segregating theater audiences led to further restrictions. The restrictions were relaxed somewhat in 1971, when he was allowed to travel to England to direct his play Boesman and Lena.

He has written 20 plays, the most recent of which is Exits and Entrances written and produced in Los Angeles in 2004. His work, including his seminal collaborations with black actors like John Kani and Winston Ntshona, emphasizes the absurdity of life as a condition resulting from human power structures (most frequently apartheid in South Africa) and not as the condition of life itself. ‘My real territory as a dramatist is the world of secrets with their powerful effect on human behaviour and the trauma of their revelation,’ says Fugard. ‘They are the dynamos that generate all the significant action in my plays.’

GAVIN HOOD, SCREENWRITER / DIRECTOR

After graduating with a degree in law in South Africa, Gavin worked briefly as an actor before heading to the US to study screenwriting and directing at the University of California, Los Angeles. Here, in 1993, he won a Diane Thomas Screenwriting Award for his first screenplay, “A Reasonable Man.” The script was inspired by a case of ritual murder. Judges included Steven Spielberg, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Kennedy.

After completing his studies, Gavin returned to South Africa where he got his first writing and directing work making educational dramas for the new Department of Health which was just beginning to feel the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. For his work in educational television, Gavin won one Artes Award (a South African Emmy) and was nominated for another. In 1998 Gavin made his 35mm film directing debut with a 22 minute short called “The Storekeeper.” The film went on to win thirteen international film festival awards including the Grand Prize at the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia, which qualified the film for Academy Award consideration in 1998.

“The Storekeeper” paved the way for Gavin's low budget feature debut, “A Reasonable Man,” which he wrote, directed, co-produced (with Paul Raleigh) and starred in opposite Academy Award nominee Sir Nigel Hawthorne. At the All Africa Film Awards in 2001, Gavin won Best Actor, Best Screenwriter and Best Director. At the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, Gavin was named by Variety as one of their “Ten Directors To Watch.”

In 2001, Gavin was hired to adapt and direct an epic children’s African adventure story based on a novel, In Desert and Wilderness, by Polish Nobel prizewinning author, Henryk Sienkiewicz. One catch – though the film was set in Africa where Gavin grew up, it had to be made in Polish. Grabbing a chance to shoot on Super 35mm Gavin took the job, working with a Polish translator. On release, the film became the highest grossing film in Poland for the year and won Best of the Fest at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival in 2002.

PETER FUDAKOWSKI, PRODUCER

In 2003, Peter commissioned Gavin Hood to adapt Athol Fugard’s only novel, Tsotsi, as a feature film. Together with his wife, Henrietta Fudakowski who worked closely with Gavin as script editor, they produced “Tsotsi” in South Africa between 2004 and 2005 with funding from UKFTV, the Industrial Development Corporation of SA, the National Film & Video Foundation of SA, and the co-production services of Paul Raleigh of Moviworld. Peter graduated with a masters degree in Economics from Cambridge University and an MBA from The European Institute for Business Administration, INSEAD, Fontainebleau. But his first love was always for feature films. In 1979 Peter joined the First National Bank of Chicago with the thought that financing features films would be a good place to start his career as a producer. Working in the film financing department, Peter helped fund many an independent American movie over the three years with the bank. However, disillusioned with the quality of the projects the Bank was being asked to fund, Peter left to set up his own production company with his wife Henrietta as script editor and head of development. Their company, Premiere Productions Ltd celebrated its 20th year in the film business with the production of “Tsotsi.” In the intervening years, Peter has written and produced many multimedia training films for the finance industry, winning numerous international prizes, and working with such talent as Jonathan Pryce, Miranda Richardson, Lindsay Duncan, Bill Paterson, and clients including Price Waterhouse Coopers, the Bank of England, Ford, The European Investment Bank, Lloyds and TSB.

Peter has acted as Executive Producer on films including “The Last September” starring Maggie Smith, Fiona Shaw and Michael Gambon; “Trial by Fire”and “The Helen West” crime series for ITV starring Juliet Stevenson and Amanda Burton. As CEO of The UK Film & TV Production Company plc (UKFTV), a company for which he raised capital in 2001 with sponsorship from Matrix Securities, Peter was instrumental in the making of “Bugs 3D!”– an IMAX film about the microcosmic life of insects. This 40-minute documentary has grossed over $24m worldwide to-date and is expected to continue screening around the world in Giant Screen Theatres for years to come. As a “bridge financier” and executive producer for Premiere Productions, Peter has also been instrumental in financing such features as: “Keeping Mum,” starring Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Maggie Smith; “Piccadilly Jim” starring Brenda Blethyn, Tom Wilkinson and Sam Rockwell.

PAUL RALEIGH, CO-PRODUCER

Paul Raleigh is the Managing Director of Moviworld in South Africa and has been involved in the production of film in South Africa for over thirty years. He has overseen and produced dozens of feature films and television series, both local and international, including over fifty episodes of “African Skies” which sold around the world.

Paul has Co-Produced and co-operated with the following North American and European Organizations: Star Edizioni Cinematograf, UK Film and TV, 7 Arts, Pandora Cinema (France), Off the Fence (Holland), Nu Image, Harmony Gold, Franklin Waterman Entertainment, Atlantis Films (Canada), Cine City Productions, Arsenio Hall Communications, Kings Road Entertainment, Columbia Tristar, Unapix Entertainment and Miramax. Some notable productions include; “Stander” (A 7 Arts Production, starring Thomas Jane), “The Storekeeper” (winner of 13 international awards), “A Reasonable Man”(winner of 5 All Africa Film Awards including Best Film), “The Hangman’s Daughter” and “Texas Blood Money” (A Quentin Tarantino Series of films for Miramax) and “Born Free” (Columbia Tri-Star).