South Africa has gotten its Oscar contender in under the wire, picking Muneera Sallies’s music-themed drama Old Righteous Blues as its contender for the 97th Academy Awards in the best international feature category.
South Africa’s National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) announced the pick, which was chosen by the South African Academy Awards Selection Committee. Sallies’ drama follows a young man who tries to unite his divided community through the power of music.
Ayden Croy stars as Hantjie Jansen, a young man who plays in his town’s Kerskoor (Christmas choir) who is passed over for the choir’s top job as trommelmajoor (drum major) when his uncle, Oom Jakwes (Ivan Abrahams) retires. The snub is a result of a decades-old feud going back to a choice by Croy’s father that split the fabulous Old Righteous Blues Kerskoor into two rival bands and has divided the community every since. Croy sets out to reunite the bands, and the community, and heal old wounds with some rousing tunes.
Based on an original idea by writer and producer Carol Shore, Old Righteous Blues enters the Oscar race without a major festival premiere under its belt. The drama screened at South Africa’s Silwerskerm Film Festival, which highlights Afrikaans cinema, at the Romford festival in the U.K. and at Flordia’s Sunscreen film festival.
South Africa has been nominated twice for the best international feature Oscar and has won once, for Gavin Hood’s crime drama Tsotsi in 2005. John Trengove’s The Wound made the Oscar shortlist in 2017 but missed out on a nomination.
The shortlist for the 97th Oscars will be unveiled on Dec. 17, 2024, with the final nominations revealed on Jan. 17, 2025. The awards ceremony will take place on March 2, 2025.
