Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood
Gavin Hoodis a South African filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for writing and directing Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also directed the films X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Ender's Game...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth12 May 1963
although baby becomes ghetto hides intimate kid quickly seems
Although it seems to be a ghetto movie, it very quickly becomes a much more intimate story, the story of this young, teenage, lost, crazy, out-of-control kid and a baby that he hides from his friends.
african deal fact matter pressure sounds south
You don't want to make a big deal out of it because it sounds indulgent. But the fact of the matter is that, for all South African filmmakers, because we don't make a lot of films, you feel an unrealistic pressure that your film has to say so much and has to be about everything in South Africa.
country france la next released six sound speak sweden week worked
This may sound melodramatic but I have never, ever worked so hard. The film will be released in a different country every week for the next six weeks. I've just come back from Germany, France and Sweden to be in LA for the nominations and to speak to the American press.
deep emotions fellow heart human stories thank
I want to thank my fellow nominees, who I've become deep friends with. We may have foreign-language films, but our stories are the same as your stories. They're about the human heart and emotion.
needs parents
My parents have been car-jacked. I have been mugged. We all know what it is like. But do you write a story about the way it is, or the way it should, or could, or needs to be?
buy definitely helps question screening
The first question after every screening is, 'Where can I buy the soundtrack?', and that definitely helps the movie.
artistic-ability black video
You have to separate artistic ability from ethnic origin. Not only am I not black, I am also not a woman, therefore how can I direct women? I am also only 42, therefore how can I direct someone who's 60? So you see where the argument ends up? If you take it to its logical conclusion, I would have to walk around and point a video camera at myself. And who the hell is interested in that?
jobs race stories
I am a story-teller working with a craft. My job is to use my craft - which is a different thing to my race - and tell a story well.
mean thinking years
I think if you read the story as bad guy turns good guy, then clearly it is a cliché. But my experience, when I spent three years working with young people in the townships on issues principally around HIV/AIDS, is that people are usually neither entirely good or bad. They are usually variations of both. Just because someone is a carjacker doesn't mean they are a ruthless cold-blooded murderer.
military awful conflict
Having been in the military myself, there is an awful moment when you're in this moment of conflict.
scripts now-and-then
One reads many scripts, and some of them are good and some of them are not, but every now and then, one really grabs you. You simply can't put it down.
war reality people
And for the people who promote drones as the answer to everything, there is a danger from being distanced from the reality of the ugly mess of war.
military important asking
The question becomes, because we're remotely far away from the territory we're about to bomb, does it make it easier to do it? That it is an important question, and the military is asking those questions.
philosophy winning thinking
When I see big movies that are only about good versus evil, and the good guy wins, I only can think we're in a far more complicated world than that. I frankly think that this binary philosophy is actually a dangerous way to look at the world.