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ANANT SINGH PRODUCER Anant Singh has brought to international screens the most prevailing anti-apartheid films ever made, including Sarafina\ (Whoopi Goidberg) and Place of Weeping from director Darrell James Roodt. He was born and raised in Durban, South Africa where his association with film began with omm and 16mm home movies; he started a cinema for the neighbourhood kids in his own lounge. Before video, 16mm film renatal was the only home entertainment available and as an adolescent/ he worked part-time in a movie rentai store re-winding films. From the beginning he was in possession of an indelible drive which today has made him one of the leading motion picture producers in South Africa, and certainly the first black film producer. Anant Singh made his first entrepreneurial foray at the age of eighteen when he relinquished his engineering studies at the University of Durban-Westville to purchase a movie rental store. This, as a starting point, in industry beset with obstacles for a black South African, was an early indication of Singh's enduring vision. From there, he moved into video distribution and attended global markets and industry events under the acquisition 'banned, displaying the beginnings of a business style that would/ one day, see him securing world-wide distribution for his own product. The formation of VIDEOVISION ENTERPRISES was the start of a gradual acquisition of overseas product for local audiences and eleven years on, this company is one of the largest independent distributors of motion pictures in Southern Africa. VIDEOVISION ENTERPRISES serves as a major source of supply to the theatrical, video and television industry. The company licenses product to UIP, Warner Home Video,. Anant Singh has handled the distribution rights of notable box office titles such as Sou/ Man, Bedroom Eyes, Enk The Vik'mg, The Handmaids Tale, Angel Heart, Rambo U & Extreme Prejudice, Running Man/, Ironweed, and notably the Award-winning Rosencrsntz and Cuidenstern Are Dead and Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky, Miios Forman's Valmont, David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, Peter Medak's Let Him Have It and Bill Duke's A Rage In HaHem, Lee Tamahori's ONCE WERE WARRIORS, Abel Farraro BAD LSEVTENANT and Ismaif Merchant's IN CUSTODY. With his years of accumulated experience and contacts made in distribution, Anant Singh expanded into film production in 1984, financing most of the films personally. His first feature film A Place of Weeping, directed by Darrell Roodt was the first anti- apartheid motion picture to be made in South Africa and received world-wide acclaim- It was also the only South African film to play on HRO and was released theatrically in the United States and most global territories. Following two political thrillers City of Blood and Tenth Or A Second, Singh produced Quest For Love, directed by Helena Nogueira and starring Sandra Prinsloo (The Gods Must Be Crazy} and Jana Ciliiers, which was nominated as Best Picture in the 1988 AA Life-M-Net Vita Awards. This film has been screened at a number of major film festivals around the globe. In 1967. Anant Singh produced the controversial and later banned,
anti-war film The Stick, which was also directed by Darrell Roodt. Declining
an order to make 48 cuts to the film, he opted to wait two years for it to be
passed by the censorious local Publications Control Board. The picture was
selected from 230 international contenders to open the prestigious Montreal
World Film Festival and was nominated for six awards/ including Best Film in
the 1989 AA Life-M-Net Vita Awards, and screened at numerous major
international festivals. Anant Singh's association with DISTANT HORIZON, an
internationally based distribution, finance and production company, has seen
the production of a number of films. |
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