Elalini adds to SA film awards tally

South Africa has another Oscar winner. The student film Elalini has been selected by the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences membership as the winning film in the 33rd Annual Student Academy Awards Honorary Foreign Film category.

The winning director, Tristan Holmes, will travel to Los Angeles as a guest of the Academy to spend the Student Academy Awards week with the other winning filmmakers from the US.

The film was part of Holmes' honours study at the Afda film and drama school in Auckland Park, Johannesburg. It will be shown to an audience of 2 000 top people in the film world.

"Nomakaya, a disillusioned policewoman haunted by the memory of a boy's death, who must decide between the city and her rural home when the protection of her own child is placed under threat

"Her traditionalist father, now too weak to look after him, journeys the long distance to Johannesburg to convince her to return.

"It is through a broken and lost street child, Moses, that she is able to find the strength in herself to forgive, and resume her responsibilities as a mother."

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