Oscar For Best Foreign Film "Yesterday" Made In South Africa ... we have to wait another few hours

STOP PRESS March 2006 ... The film Tsotsi won the best foreign language film at the 2006 Oscar awards. Director Gavin Wood received the prize.

Tonight sees the 2005 Oscar presentations and a South African film called "Yesterday" appears to be in line for a possible Oscar. So why is this important? Let me elaborate a bit ...

My own view, and probably a tarnished one, is that films made in South Africa have never somehow seemed real ... in particular there was always something about the film's soundtrack that made almost any production unreal ... I don't know what it was. The sound always seemed to have an echo to it ... it was the same with TV productions.

Anyway the reason for this web page is to identify something I was not consciously aware of and this is that more and more foreign films of the highest calibre are being made here and yet so little is heard of these productions and the positive impact they have on South Africa in general . It was the reading of Barry Ronge's column in the Sunday Times that brought this to my attention and so we have something else to use to market our wonderful country that counters directly the touted bad image so often unfairly portrayed

Here's a list of films made in South Africa recently and their locations ... and as Barry Ronge points out it is not just about the great weather and magnificent and varied scenery we have to offer ... although

Unrivaled locations, a climate second to none mixed with low costs have made South Africa a distinct and real option to making films in the US, Australia and New Zealand where many foreign films are made.

• "Hotel Rwanda" made in Johannesburg area (in fact in Modderfontein, some 10 kms east of Johannesburg city centre and home of the world largest explosive's factory

• Remake of "The Poseidon Adventure" just outside Cape Town

• "Racing Stripes" was made in the Natal Midlands and according to Barry Ronge the BBC TV drama "To The Ends Of The Earth" was shot on the Richards Bay Waterfront. Richards Bay is an well known as an iron-ore and coal export port on the east Coast in kwaZulu Natal

Yesterday

"For the first time, a South African film is in the running for cinema's top prize. Darrell Roodt's "Yesterday", the tale of a mother's fight against HIV AIDS and the first feature-length film in the Zulu language, is nominated for best foreign film. Roodt's success has been hailed as the crowning glory for a film industry that has been reborn since the end of apartheid ..."

"It's mostly beneficial, because it brings work to the country for our crews, but it does little to develop our own writers and directors," he said.   Reuters Press

Good luck at The Oscars tonight, guys .....