"Tsotsi" Story aired: Thursday, March 02, 2006
The have-nots of South Africa are vividly portrayed in the new film "Tsotsi," which is up for an Academy Award this weekend as best foreign language film. In the language of the impoverished South African townships, "Tsotsi" is shorthand for thug; it is also the name of the fictional lead of the film.
The film tells the story of a murderous shantytown teenager who shoots a woman and then steals her car. When he discovers her infant son in the back seat, his own sense of decency begins to awaken.
"Tsotsi" is inspired by South African screenwriter Athol Fugard's novel of the same name, which was written during the apartheid era. The film version has been set in modern day South Africa and writer/director Gavin Hood has said that this film helped him to express some of his feelings about members of his family being victims of crime in Johannesburg
Guests:
Gavin Hood, writer and director of the new film "Tsotsi"
