Tsotsi; Authorship

Tsotsi; Authorship

1. Gavin Hood (Director)

   • Born in Johannesburg, South Africa
   • Says his film Tsotsi is more about class rather than race -the "haves" and "have-nots"
     • Setting the film post-Apartheid
   • Admits he was inspired by films like City of God
   • The plot is a coming of age story set in an extreme place
     • Although South Africa continues to struggle with disease and inequality, Hood says South Africans are proud to have transitioned from apartheid to democracy without bloodshed, which he feels is reflected in his film.
   • He decided to shoot the film in the street dialect of Tsotsi-taal with all local actors
     • When shooting in a shanty town to make it real, all the shots of the shanty town are all people who actually lived in that town, not all are actors, structure of this is almost like a documentary

2. Athol Fugard (Author of novel)

   • Born in Middelburg, Eastern Cape, South Africa
   • The novel is set in the 1950s a time were Apartheid was rife amongst the nation
   • Best known for his political plays opposing the system of Apartheid
     • He worked as a clerk at a Native Commissioners Court where it became apparent to him the inequalities of Apartheid
       • His best friend was a huge activist against Apartheid with his wife, but they were silenced after the state threatened their children.
         • The political views of Fugards plays brought him into conflict with the government and so he published his work outside of South Africa

3. Presley Chweneyagae (Actor)

   • He was a local actor that lived in a township
   • Born in Soweto, Transvaal, South Africa
   • Tsotsi was his first feature film
     • This was nominated for several academy awards and won an oscar

4. Tsotsi-taal as a language

   • The Tsotsi-taal phenomenon originates with one variety known as Flaaitaal or Flytaal, and then Tsotsitaal, becoming popular under this latter name in the freehold township of Sophiatown, west of Johannesburg, in the 1940s and 1950s.
   • Tsotsi-taal spread first as a criminal language, as it had the power of insuring secrecy in the speech: only criminals at first could understand it.