Tsotsi -- South Africa's Oscar Win

The South African movie Tsotsi won an Oscar tonight in the Best Foreign Movie category. Tsotsi is set in Soweto, one of South Africa's notoriously crime-ridden townships just outside of Johannesburg. Tsotsi (which means "thug" in township patois) is the name of the central character, an orphan, played by Presley Chweneyagae. He's a troubled teenager who steals a car and inadvertently ends up having to look after the young baby that was still in it.

What makes this film so remarkable is not just the realistic storyline and great acting, but the fact that the main actors themselves were living in corrugated shacks in Soweto until very recently. South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper reports that Terry Pheto and Presley Chweneyagae were cast based on their performances in a theatre group in Soweto run by Thulani Didi and Kere Nyawo, who founded Saturday drama groups credited with saving hundreds of young people from a life of poverty or crime. Tonight two of their young students took the spotlight in Hollywood after a rousing speech by the film's director Gavin Hood.

More information:

• Miramax's Tsotsi Web Site
  
• Tsotsi Review from World/Independent Film at About.com
  
• Article about Soweto Community Theatre from the Johannesburg Sunday Times