Gavin Hood (born 12 May 1963) is a South African filmmaker, and actor, best known for writing and directing Tsotsi (2005), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also directed the films X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Ender's Game, Eye in the Sky and Official Secrets. Early life Hood was born in Johannesburg and grew up in the Hillbrow area. He is the son of the English-born South African retailer Gordon Hood (d. 2013). Hood attended St Stithians College and went on to graduate with a law degree from the University of the Witwatersrand. He then pursued a post-graduate degree in screenwriting and directing at a film school in California in 1991. Directing career Upon returning to his home country, Hood got his start in directing when he was commissioned to make several short educational dramas for the South African Department of Health. His first commercial short film was The Storekeeper (1998). He earned an Artes Award for his contributions. Hood co-produced and wrote the script for his debut feature film, A Reasonable Man (1999), which portrays the accidental killing of a young child mistaken for a tokoloshe. He then directed the Polish language 2001 feature film In Desert and Wilderness (W pustyni i w puszczy) when its original director fell ill. This was then followed by the critically acclaimed crime drama film Tsotsi (2005). Tsotsi went on to win the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, granting him his first Academy Award, and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. Hood was also nominated for the 2005 Non-European Film—Prix Screen International at the European Film Awards for his work on the film. In 2000, Variety magazine named him as one of its "Ten Directors to Watch". He directed Rendition (2007), his first Hollywood feature, for New Line Cinema. He also directed the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, with Hugh Jackman reprising his role from the X-Men films. Prior to the film's release, Gavin talked about the political undertones of the new Wolverine movie: Any movie that is simply about good versus evil ... is in my view putting out into the world and certainly into a mass audience and young audience's mind a rather dangerous philosophy, which is that there is good and evil in the simplistic and easily defined