Born in Johannesburg in 1963, Gavin Hood studied law and trained as an actor in Los Angeles before directing. His breakthrough Tsotsi (2005), adapted from Athol Fugard's novel, about a young gang leader in a Johannesburg township who finds a baby in a car he has hijacked, won the Oscar for best foreign language film, the first for South Africa. He then worked in Hollywood, with Rendition (2007), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and Ender's Game (2013), and returned to smaller thrillers such as Eye in the Sky (2015).
Filmography
- Tsotsi (2005)
- Rendition (2007)
- Eye in the Sky (2015)
- Official Secrets (2019)