South Africa’s Presley Chweneyagae has won the award for outstanding performance by an actor in a leading role for Tsotsi at the Black Movie Awards in Los Angeles, News24 reported on Monday.
Chweneyagae was up against Denzel Washington (Inside Man), Cuba Gooding Junior (Shadowboxer), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Kinky Boots) and
Tyrese Gibson (Waist Deep).
The website said a prominent committee of film critics, entertainment editors and members of the artistic community choose nominees and recipients of the awards from a list of eligible films released in the United States between August 1 2005 and July 31 2006.
Tsotsi, the film about a Johannesburg township thug, won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this year, making it the first film from South Africa to win the award.
Directed and written by Gavin Hood, the film features a searing performance by Chweneyagae as a gun-toting, emotionally dead gangster who suddenly learns that human life has some value when he is forced to care for a baby he has kidnapped. – Sapa