17/03/2006

Tsotsi, the UK/South African film by Gavin Hood, which won this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, is being released today by Momentum Pictures, a good moment considering that only three other new films are starting their UK run this week: Israeli film Ushpizin, US comedy The Pink Panther and the US/German/UK thriller V For Vendetta [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Set amidst the sprawling, crime-ridden streets of Johannesburg, where survival is the primary objective, Tsotsi traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader (Tsotsi) who ends up caring for a baby he accidentally kidnaps during a car-jacking. With the baby’s welfare at stake, Tsotsi is compelled to confront his own brutal nature and face the consequences of his actions, if he ever wishes to find redemption in his life.

UK producer Peter Fudakowski, who set up his own production company in 2001, the UK Film & TV Company, is the man behind this film, which started its successful festival run in Edinburgh last August and is now one of the hottest arthouse titles of 2006. Fudakowski first contacted South African director Gavin Hood to adapt Athol Fugard’s only novel, Tsotsi, in 2003. The film was then made in South Africa between 2004 and 2005, in co-production with South African producer Paul Raleigh (Movie World), who had produced Hood’s acclaimed feature debut A Reasonable Man.

Momentum Pictures is releasing the film on 86 screens today, including 17 in London’s West End. Other European territories where Tsotsiwill open over the next three months include Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway (Scandox, March 24), Sweden (Scandox, April 14), Italy (April 23), France (MK2, sometime in April), Germany (Kinowelt) and Switerland (Filmcoopi, May 4).