Oscar nominee The Last Ranger shows that the world still wants to see South African stories

The Last Ranger was South Africa’s latest Oscar nominated film – and the only African movie on the 2025 shortlist for the career-making US awards.

The 28-minute short film, shot on location in a game reserve in the Eastern Cape province and told in isiXhosa, focuses on rhino poaching.

It’s a fiction film based on a real incident (the end credits slip into documentary mode to show footage of the rhino named Thandi that inspired the story). It was touted by many commentators as a likely winner in the Live Action Short Film category at the Oscars (though in the end, it lost the award to I'm Not a Robot).

https://youtu.be/ruLdx8ep_lQ

The action is seen through the eyes of a female game ranger, Khusi, and a young girl, Litha, who lives in a village next to the reserve. It is harrowing, yet affirming, similar emotionally to South African Oscar-winner Gavin Hood’s 1998 short film The Storekeeper. In both films, two worlds are introduced and then drawn into tragic conflict.

In a promotional interview for the film, director Cindy Lee says, "It is uniquely South African … this proves the world wants to watch South African stories."

South Africa won the Documentary Feature Film Oscar in 2021 for another environmentally-themed film My Octopus Teacher and won Best Foreign Feature in 2005 for Tsotsi, about a township gangster.

I research and teach South African film and frequently focus on wildlife and environmentally themed films. In my view, The Last Ranger is a beautifully produced film that proves the country’s stories still have great appeal for audiences worldwide. Its success also reveals what kind of stories the US rewards from the country.

Is it any good?

The film’s success is built on two compelling central performances by Avumile Qongqo as the ranger Khusi, and Liyabona Mroqoza as Litha. Litha’s father is also sympathetically played by Makhaola Ndebele, his character providing complexity to the film’s emotional arc.

His caution to his young daughter that she should play carefully with the wooden rhinos he carves, “or they’ll break” simply, yet effectively, foreshadows the climactic action. Litha meets Khusi by chance that morning during the Covid lockdown and goes with her to monitor a rhino in the reserve. Her introduction to the wonders of the reserve and its animals is shockingly interrupted by poachers.

Liyabona Mroqoza (left) plays Litha and Avumile Qongqo is the ranger Khusi. Photo: Supplied/Kindred Films

The strong human bonds between father and daughter, ranger and girl, are complemented by the film’s advocacy for rhino conservation, as well as by the fictional human tragedy built into the film’s documentary message of affirmation and hope.

The Last Ranger is the second in an anthology of 24 films – When the World Stopped – begun during, and inspired by, the Covid pandemic. So, it is one of “24 points of view in one cinematic journey around the world” that represents the country during Covid.

But it is also not simply a Covid story. It deals with one of the most evocative conservation issues of our time, the brutal illegal trade in rhino horn, the poaching that supports it, and the impact it has on rhino numbers in South Africa.

https://youtu.be/OiqMQsUOJyo

For the majority of viewers, this will be of little concern as the film’s narrative and aesthetics are compelling enough on their own. Beyond the film’s superb craft (it looks gorgeous, it’s crisply edited, and beautifully shot and scored) it does raise some thoughts for me about South African stories on film. And which stories the world wants to watch.

Animals and conflict

The film encouraged me to review other South African nominees at the Oscars. Yesterday (2004) and Tsotsi (2005) put South Africa on the map before two documentaries revived interest in local film-making.

Searching for Sugarman (2012) is not South African, though the story had a strong local context. My Octopus Teacher (2020) was a genuine Covid lockdown word-of-mouth hit. It showed that small stories could win big awards and also demonstrated the new power of streaming platforms.

These films and The Last Ranger – admittedly a small sample – reveal a few things about local film-making and storytelling.

Photo: Supplied/Kindred Films

Firstly, South Africa’s mix of amazing locations, a vulnerable currency, and top-notch technical crews continue to make it an attractive film-making destination.

Secondly, South Africa still wields considerable soft power when it comes to representational value in global and globalised entertainment industries.

From political events and figures like the Sharpeville massacre, the 1976 Soweto uprising, Robben Island, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Chris Hani to game reserves with lions, rhinos, penguins, sharks, and world-beating rugby sides, there is still fascination with the country and who South Africans are.

Thirdly, and following on from this, our global stories tend to revolve around issues: AIDS, apartheid and its aftermath, and conservation. We are looked to for stories of conscience, often in circumstances of great hardship.

In a review of My Octopus Teacher a colleague and I argued that the film “could lead to wonderfully positive outcomes, but only if marginalised South Africans have agency and power in front of and behind the cameras”.

There is no doubt that South African storytelling is, in many ways, booming with the increased diversity of streaming platforms such as Netflix and Showmax. And this has produced a wider range of South African stories for audiences locally and abroad.

Avumile Qongqo as ranger Khusi and Liyabona Mroqoza as Litha in The Last Ranger. Photo: Supplied/Kindred Films

While the country’s emerging filmmakers focus on more complex and nuanced human stories, the Oscars show that South African film is still popular for stories about animals, crisis, and conflict.

The Last Ranger uses human relationships to drive its narrative of conservation; while it is a tragic thriller, it still leaves the audience with a feel-good message.

The Last Ranger relies more on the simplicity of its narrative and stirring post-script than character complexity for its emotional effect. It does not just focus on the awful reality of rhino poaching but suggests, through young Litha’s brief mentorship under the stern but compassionate Khusi, that a young generation will pick up the torch on behalf of the country’s endangered wildlife. DM 

This story was first published in The Conversation. Ian-Malcolm Rijsdijk is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Cape Town.