Tsotsi

To be shown: 5 February 2007

UK/South Africa 2005
94 minutes
Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Presley Chweneyagae, Mothusi Magano, BostonIsrael Makoe.

Synopsis

The story is set in Soweto outside Johannesburg where the government had built small neat houses. These have become completely overwhelmed by mile upon mile of shacks where poverty drives young men like Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae ) to despair and gangsterhood.

Tsotsi is not his real name, it means thug in South African street language and that is what he is. With his gang he sets out each day to do damage, steal and sometimes kill. They surround and stab an elderly man in a railway carriage for the money he has been unwise enough to show. Nobody notices.

Another night another crime...

On the periphery of a wealthy black suburb a woman gets out of her car, something she would not usually do but the gizmo that electronically opens the security gates doesn't work. Unfortunately for her, Tsotsi is near enough to try and steal her car and, when she resists, he shoots her and drives it away - with her baby on board.

He takes the baby to his shack but his attempts at childcare are both chaotic and entertaining. They reveal an unexpected and long-buried side of Tsotsi who, realising that he cannot cope, sets out to find someone who can. He finds Miriam (Terry Pheto), a nursing mother, and forces her to care for the child. For the sake of the baby she agrees, but perhaps also for Tsotsi's sake so that he might become someone else, with another name.

Abandoning the baby, as he himself was abandoned, is never an option for him, and this fact anchors us emotionally to Tsotsi so that against all the odds, we will him to redemption.