Born and raised in apartheid South Africa in the eastern coastal city of Durban, Singh began his film career at age 18 when he left his studies at the University of Durban-Westville to purchase a 16mm movie rental store. From there, he moved into video distribution, forming Videovision Entertainment and then progressed into film production in 1984 with Place of Weeping, the first anti-apartheid film to be made entirely in South Africa.
Anant Singh is recognized as South Africa's pre-eminent film producer, having produced more than 80 films since 1984. He is responsible for many of the most profound anti-apartheid films made in South Africa, among which are "Place Of Weeping," Sarafina! and Cry, the Beloved Country.
Nelson Mandela called him "a producer I respect very much...a man of tremendous ability" when he granted him the film rights to his autobiography, Long Walk To Freedom.
Singh is the producer of Yesterday (from director, Darrell James Roodt), which received South Africa's first Academy Award Nomination in the Best Foreign Language Picture category in 2005, the Peabody Award and an Emmy Nomination in 2006 in the "Outstanding Made For Television Movie" category.
A selection of his subsequent feature films includes: Sarafina! with Whoopi Goldberg, Leleti Khumalo and Miriam Makeba; The Road to Mecca, with Kathy Bates; Father Hood, with Patrick Swayze and Halle Berry; Captives, with Julia Ormond and Tim Roth; Stephen King's The Mangler, Cry, the Beloved Country with James Earl Jones and Richard Harris; and Red Dust, directed by Tom Hooper and starring Hilary Swank and Chiwetel Ejiofor, a drama focussing on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Released in 2008 and produced by Singh is More Than Just A Game, the moving docu-drama feature which tells the inspiring story of organised soccer among prisoners on Robben Island (the maximum security prison where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were incarcerated by the apartheid regime in South Africa).
The First Grader, directed by Justin Chadwick, was a hit at the Telluride, Toronto, London and Doha Film Festivals in 2010, tells the remarkable and uplifting story of a proud old Mau Mau veteran who is determined to seize his last opportunity to learn to read and goes to school for the first time, joining a class of six year olds.
Among the documentary features produced by Singh are My Hunter's Heart which explores the world's oldest Shamanic culture and how it is now at the brink of extinction; and Once In A Lifetime which celebrates the magic and euphoria of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
Anant Singh has also produced notable documentaries, including Countdown to Freedom, about the first democratic election in South Africa, Prisoners of Hope, about a reunion on Robben Island of 1250 of its former political prisoners led by Nelson Mandela, Hero For All which documents Nelson Mandela's farewell visit to the United States as he stepped down from the South African Presidency. Viva Madiba: A Hero For All Seasons was produced as a 90th Birthday tribute to Nelson Mandela in July 2008 and Obama: People's President, a documentary feature that explores the unique and innovative US presidential campaign mounted by Barack Obama as well as The Journalist And The Jihadi: The Murder Of Daniel Pearl which tracks the parallel lives of the late Wall Street Journal writer and his Jihadi murderer, Omar Sheikh.
Singh co-owns Cape Town Film Studios, a state-of-the-art film studio facility in Cape Town which also hosted the shoot of Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom and where authentic sets were created on the back lot. He also co-chairs the Cape Town Metropolitan radio station, Smile 90.4FM.
He is a former board member of the International Marketing Council Of South Africa (now Brand South Africa) and South African Tourism, having served two terms on both these bodies, the Los Angeles-based Artists For A New South Africa and the Nelson Mandela 46664 AIDS Awareness Initiative.
Singh is a recipient of the Crystal Award of the World Economic Forum and the Lifetime Founder Member Award of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. Both the University of Durban-Westville and the University Of Port Elizabeth have conferred honorary doctorates on him.
Singh was also nominated for the 2006 Black Businessman Of The Year Award by the influential business magazine, Black Business Quarterly.
The 2007 Palm Beach International Film Festival conferred the World Visionary Award to Singh for his contribution to world cinema and his production of socially conscious films.
The South African Film Industry honoured Anant Singh for his significant contribution to the advancement of the industry with the inaugural Golden Horn Award for Outstanding Contributor at the first South African Film and Television Awards in October 2006. Singh was also awarded the inaugural Simon Mabhunu Sabela Film Lifetime Achievement Award from the KwaZulu Natal Film Commission in honour of his contribution to raising the profile of the film industry in the KwaZulu Natal province and South Africa.
The Weinstein Company
