Gavin Hood, Tsotsi

An actor-turned-filmmaker, Gavin Hood has hit the international big time with the searing Tsotsi, the 2005 South African Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film. A burly six-foot-two, Hood was not the first writer to attempt an adaptation of Athol Fugard's novel. South Africa's most famous playwright, Fugard tells of a teenage gangster whose life is changed when he kidnaps a baby. The play is set in the apartheid era of the late 1950s; Hood contemporized the setting, added several characters and changed the ending - all with Fugard's positive endorsement: "A perfect understanding of my intentions in telling that story." Only his third feature, Tsotsi shows Hood's sure way with actors, especially the diminutive Presley Chweneyagae as the gangster Tsotsi (30.5 minutes).

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