Overview

It all began with Charlie Chaplin, flickering in black and white on a makeshift screen in their modest home in Springfield, which later led to the neighbourhood children happily handing over their coins to 10-year-old Anant Singh and his younger brother Sanjeev. At age 13, deeply affected by the passing of his father, Anant found solace and escape in the moving image to which his father had introduced him. The combination of a deep and abiding passion for film and an entrepreneurial spirit were the sparks that lit the flame for Anant as he rewound 16mm reels in a film rental store in Durban, first for R1 a day and then for R25 a week. In South Africa in the 1970s, there were not many career options for a Black person who dreamed big in any business, let alone the film industry. But before his twentieth birthday, Anant was the owner of that store and in a business in which no person of colour had ventured. Restrictive legislation was not the only problem; all public facilities, including cinemas, were segregated and any voice raised in opposition to the state was swiftly silenced, while censorship across all forms of media, including films, was strictly enforced. By hiring out films classified for whites only to all races and uncensored movies to anyone who wanted to watch them, Anant was arrested for breaking the laws he refused to recognise as legitimate. He moved on to wider distribution, first to cinemas across Africa and then to the international market, to setting up Videovision Enterprises and capturing the home video market, and finally to putting his heart and soul into producing award-winning and important films. This extraordinary memoir is a story of professional relationships - and of friendships - with mentors including Ahmed Kathrada, Fatima and Ismail Meer and Nelson Mandela, as well as with superstars such as Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier, Whoopi Goldberg, Amitabh Bachchan, Denzel Washington and Idris Elba. And it is a testament to determination, courage and perseverance - to speak up and speak out through the powerful medium of film.

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9781770107403

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ANANT SINGH was born and raised in Durban. He is recognised as South Africa's pre-eminent film producer, having produced more than 100 films over four decades, from the mid-1980s to the present. Some of these include Place of Weeping, The Stick, Cry, the Beloved Country, Sarafina!, the AIDS-awareness film Yesterday (South Africa's first Oscar-nominated film) and, in 2013, the multi-award-winning Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. He is the founder and CEO of the Videovision Entertainment Group and chair of Cape Town Film Studios. He is a member of the International Olympic Committee, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He is the recipient of many accolades, including the World Economic Forum's Crystal Award, and is the first man to receive the International Women's Forum Legacy Award.

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