Despite there being no South African entries at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the country's presence was nevertheless felt at Park City, Utah, in the US.
Two music-themed documentaries about the country were selected to be shown at the festival, where only 200 films out of 9000 submissions make the cut for screening .
"Searching for Sugar Man" was one of three films shown on the first day of the festival on Thursday night. The documentary was inspired by two South African fans of musician Rodriguez, whose socially conscious music found a strong cult following under apartheid in the '70s and '80s - while being ignored in the US.
"Under African Skies" tells the story of Paul Simon's Grammy-winning 1986 album "Graceland", which featured numerous South African musicians, such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
The film examines the impact of the album, as well as the controversy caused by Simon's decision to ignore the United Nations' cultural boycott to make it.
Rodriguez, a recluse who was even rumoured to be dead, attended the "Searching for Sugar Man" premiere with Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul.
The project came about thanks to two South African music enthusiasts - Stephen "Sugar" Segerman, who owns the Mabu Vinyl record store in Cape Town, and music journalist Craig Bartholomew Strydom - who launched a campaign to find the folk singer in the 1990s.
Bendjelloul said his interest was sparked when he heard the story of Rodriguez's life, calling it "the best story I have ever heard".
The film tries to answer the question of how Rodriguez became a phenomenon outside his own country.
His music and lyrics inspired a generation of white South African youths, many of whom had been reluctantly conscripted into the apartheid defence force. Segerman said he considered the singer's debut album, "Cold Fact", as important to the "troepies" as that of Jimi Hendrix's music to the US troops in Vietnam.
Unaware of the impact his music had in apartheid-era South Africa, Rodriguez withdrew from the music scene, eventually becoming a construction worker. "Searching for Sugar Man" tells how his South African fans took Rodriguez from obscurity to stages in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
The movie has generated a good buzz and is being touted as a strong contender for the Audience Award in the World Documentary section.