”We are going to keep on until we get one of those buggers,” says Darrell James Roodt, director of South Africa’s Oscar-nominated film Yesterday.
Roodt, producers Anant Singh and Helena Spring, and actress Leleti Khumalo arrived back in Johannesburg on Wednesday after a nail-biting time in Los Angeles for the Oscar awards ceremony.
Their Zulu-language film, which tells the story of a gentle rural woman confronted with Aids, was pipped by the Spanish film The Sea Inside.
”Okay, we didn’t win this time, but there is always a next time. That has inspired me,” said Roodt.
A beaming Khumalo said: ”We were so proudly South African there. You are rubbing shoulders with Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood, and you say to yourself, ‘Ja, I’ve come this far.’
”We were competing with films like Million Dollar Baby. It was such an honour, I was so proud.”
Spring said: ”When you are losing against the likes of Annette Bening and Martin Scorsese, it is not such a bad thing.”
Earlier, a high-spirited Roodt quipped: ”As someone said, ‘Now we know what it’s like to be the South African cricket team.”’ — Sapa