Gavin Hood | |
|---|---|
 Hood at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival | |
| Born | 12 May 1963 |
| Education | St Stithians College |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1989–present |
Gavin Hood (born 12 May 1963)[ citation needed ] is a South African filmmaker, and actor, best known for writing and directing Tsotsi (2005), which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. He also directed the films X-Men Origins: Wolverine , Ender's Game , Eye in the Sky and Official Secrets .
Hood was born in Johannesburg and grew up in the Hillbrow area. He is the son of the English-born South African retailer Gordon Hood (d. 2013). Hood attended St Stithians College and went on to graduate with a law degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. [1] He then pursued a post-graduate degree in screenwriting and directing at a film school in California in 1991. [2]
Upon returning to his home country, Hood got his start in directing when he was commissioned to make several short educational dramas for the South African Department of Health. His first commercial short film was The Storekeeper (1998). He earned an Artes Award for his contributions. [2]
Hood co-produced and wrote the script for his debut feature film, A Reasonable Man (1999), which portrays the accidental killing of a young child mistaken for a tokoloshe. He then directed the Polish language 2001 feature film In Desert and Wilderness (W pustyni i w puszczy) when its original director fell ill. This was then followed by the critically acclaimed crime drama film Tsotsi (2005). Tsotsi went on to win the 2005 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, granting him his first Academy Award, and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. [3] [4] Hood was also nominated for the 2005 Non-European Film—Prix Screen International at the European Film Awards for his work on the film.
In 2000, Variety magazine named him as one of its "Ten Directors to Watch". [5]
He directed Rendition (2007), his first Hollywood feature, for New Line Cinema. He also directed the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine , based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, with Hugh Jackman reprising his role from the X-Men films. [6]
Prior to the film's release, Gavin talked about the political undertones of the new Wolverine movie:
Any movie that is simply about good versus evil ... is in my view putting out into the world and certainly into a mass audience and young audience's mind a rather dangerous philosophy, which is that there is good and evil in the simplistic and easily defined way
...
I think that for the last eight years, we've had that philosophy very much prevalent in the Bush administration that if you're on the side of good, at least as you perceive it, then you can do no evil ... That's what's so great about this character or about this movie for me and why I wanted to do it ... This is a guy who recognizes his own capacity for evil and I think that's exciting in a sort of popular culture kind of way. After all, the most famous line from Wolverine, the comics, is "I am the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice." [7]
In 2011, Hood began work at the helm of novelist Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game . He wrote a draft of Card's screenplay and directed the film. [8] [9] Ender's Game was released in U.S. theaters on 1 November 2013.
Hood directed and acted in Eye in the Sky, which was released on 15 September 2015 at the TIFF in Toronto, Canada.
Hood wrote, directed, and executive produced the 2019 British film Official Secrets based on the real life case of the Iraq War whistleblower Katharine Gun. [10] [11]
Over the course of his career, Hood has "bounced about, back and forth" between South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom. [12]
| Year | Film | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Writer | Producer | Notes | ||
| 1998 | The Storekeeper | Yes | Yes | Yes | Short film |
| 1999 | A Reasonable Man | Yes | Yes | Yes | Directorial Debut |
| 2001 | In Desert and Wilderness | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2005 | Tsotsi | Yes | Yes | No | Won - Academy Award for Best International Feature Film Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film |
| 2007 | Rendition | Yes | No | No | |
| 2009 | X-Men Origins: Wolverine | Yes | No | No | |
| 2013 | Ender's Game | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2015 | Eye in the Sky | Yes | No | No | |
| 2019 | Official Secrets | Yes | Yes | Executive |
Acting roles
| Year | Title | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Role | Note | ||
| 1991 | The Sheltering Desert | Willi | |
| American Kickboxer | Ken Holligan | ||
| Curse III: Blood Sacrifice | Robert | ||
| 1993 | The Game | TV series 13 episodes | |
| 1994 | Project Shadowchaser II | Tieg | |
| 1995 | Kickboxer 5 | German Champion | Direct-to-video |
| Human Timebomb | Mike | ||
| 1996 | Rhodes | Frank Johnson | 4 episodes |
| 1997 | Operation Delta Force 2: Mayday | Sparks | Direct-to-video |
| 1998 | Beings | US Doctor | |
| Operation Delta Force 3: Clear Target | Sparks | ||
| 1999 | A Reasonable Man | Sean Raine | |
| Traitor's Heart | John Roberts | ||
| 2004 | In Enemy Hands | Achilles Captain | |
| Stargate SG-1 | Colonel Alexi Vaselov | 1 episode | |
| King Solomon's Mines | Bruce McNabb | TV mini-series 2 episodes | |
| 2013 | Ender's Game | Giant | Voice and motion-capture performance cameo |
| 2015 | Eye in the Sky | Lieutenant Colonel Ed Walsh | |
Athol Fugard OIS HonFRSL is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright. He is best known for his political and penetrating plays opposing the system of apartheid. Some of these have also been adapted for film.
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St Stithians College is a private Methodist school situated in the suburb of Lyme Park in the border of Sandton and Randburg in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Founded in 1953 by Albert Collins, William Mountstephens and Gilbert Tucker, it has consistently ranked amongst the top performing independent schools in South Africa. It follows a co-ordinate educational model within a village of schools consisting of boys' and girls' colleges, boys' and girls' preparatory schools, and a junior preparatory. It is built on a 100 hectare estate, one of the largest school campuses in the country.
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Tsotsi is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Gavin Hood and produced by Peter Fudakowski. It is an adaptation of the novel Tsotsi by Athol Fugard, and is a South African/UK co-production. Set in the Alexandra slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, it stars Presley Chweneyagae as David/Tsotsi, a young street thug who steals a car only to discover a baby in the back seat. It also features Kenneth Nkosi, Jerry Mofokeng, and Rapulana Seiphemo in supporting roles.
Presley Chweneyagae, is a South African actor of Tswana origin. he rose to prominence for his starring role in a film called tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards. His mother, Agnes Keagile named him after her favourite singer, Elvis Presley. Although he had acted before in plays, Tsotsi was his first feature film. His most recent role is on the South African telenovela, The River as Thuso "Cobra" Mokoena.
Paul Hepker is a South African composer, musical director, pianist, best known for composing the score for the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2005. Hepker and Kilian also wrote the score for Rendition, the Gavin Hood film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep amongst others. Hepker and Kilian also co-composed the score for "The Bird Can’t Fly" by Dutch director Threes Anna. Hepker wrote the music for the AIDs documentary "Into the Light" which featured the voice of Kenyan artist Ayub Ogada.
Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema, originally titled Jerusalema, is a 2008 South African crime film written and directed by Ralph Ziman. The film was submitted to the Academy Awards to qualify as a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. It was a box office bomb, grossing only $400,000 against the production budget of $2 million.
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Zenzo Ngqobe is a South African actor. He is known for portraying Butcher in Gavin Hood's 2005 Oscar-winning film Tsotsi. He is also known for portraying Atang in the 2013 film The Forgotten Kingdom. For his work in the television series The River, Ngqobe was nominated for the 2019 SAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Telenovela.
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X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the 2009 superhero film X-Men Origins: Wolverine directed by Gavin Hood, based on the Marvel Comics fictional character Wolverine and starred Hugh Jackman as the titular character. It is the fourth installment of the X-Men film series, the first installment of the Wolverine trilogy within the series, and a spin-off/prequel to X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). The film's score composed and produced by Harry Gregson-Williams, released through the Varèse Sarabande record label, three days before the film. The score, however, received mixed reviews.
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