3. Khomotso Manyaka for Life, Above All
There's no explaining the magic of child actors; somehow they get the trick of communicating through their characters to the camera. And this is true whether the kids are veterans or first timers. Margaret O'Brien, 6 when she made Meet Me in St. Louis, was told she needed to cry in one scene; with a prodigy's professionalism, she asked, "Right eye or left?" Khomotso Manyaka was no Hollywood moppet, just a 12-year-old South African girl who had never acted, when director Oliver Schmitz picked her for the lead role in this starkly poignant drama about a family, a village and a people devastated by the AIDS plague. Given the challenge, Manyaka invested the part of Chanda, the sole strength of her ravaged clan, with amazing poise, delicacy and grit. At the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, viewers gave Life, Above All a 10-minute standing ovation — a good five minutes, surely, for Manyaka. Now with the film on DVD, home audiences can experience the same searing emotions and sense of discovery in finding a great young heart illuminated onscreen.