Tsotsi Opens in LA!

South African movie Tsotsi is released in LA today by Miramax. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, it follows a hardened streetkid, Tsotsi, who discovers humanity after stealing a car and finding a baby in the back seat. Local SA pals Gavin Hood and Paul Hepker directed and composed respectively. There's a taste of the soundtrack HERE.

I'm off to watch with a bunch of "locals" at The Arclight on Sunset - one of the few cinemas where you can actually reserve your seat in LA. The trailer blew me away when I saw it a few weeks ago. I got all weepy eyed and proud. Nice one Gavin! It'd be damn fine if SA got more than just a nod, and could take a statue home!

Monkey Business Pays Off

I found out today that Rosie Lambert's entry for Coke's Refreshing Filmmaker competition won the event. She called to inform me she'd just heard the good news herself. Damn fine. It's basically a Coca Cola commercial (as were all entries) and has a filmmaker (me) frustrated by the inertia and then mischief of 2 cheeky chimps.

"The Reel Monkey" can be seen online HERE, and (in late 2006) on around 21,000 screens nationwide, as part of Coke's prefeature programming.

I think I'll go reward myself with a banana...

The Fantasy Begins

Started work last week, voicing a character for the latest Final Fantasy video game. What a project! Great team of people and an extensive game environment, complete with multiple in-game movies. The animation is incredible. Will post more when I can. The game should be out in the US in May this year.