The founder
Anant Singh has spent forty years pointing a camera at South Africa.
Founder and CEO of Videovision Entertainment. Producer of more than eighty films. The man Nelson Mandela trusted with his own story.
Born Durban, 1956
Anant Singh, founder and CEO of Videovision Entertainment, was born and raised in apartheid-era Durban. At eighteen he left university to buy a 16mm rental store, moved from rental into distribution, and built what became, by the company's own account, the first Black-owned film house in South Africa.
In 1986 he produced Place of Weeping, the first anti-apartheid feature shot entirely on South African soil, working under the watch of the state's Special Branch. The films that followed, Sarafina!, Cry, the Beloved Country, Yesterday, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, carried the country's story from Durban to Cannes, Toronto, Berlin and Venice.
He has produced more than eighty films across five countries, won a Peabody and a Golden Globe, and in 2016 was elected to the International Olympic Committee. The work has never stopped being about the same thing: that African stories are taken seriously, and told at the scale they deserve.
The arc
Fifty years, from a rental store to the IOC.
At eighteen, he leaves the University of Durban-Westville and buys a 16mm film rental store in Durban. The whole career begins there.
Produces Place of Weeping, the first anti-apartheid feature made entirely in South Africa, while pursued by the apartheid state's Special Branch. Los Angeles declares a Place of Weeping Day.
Sarafina!, with Whoopi Goldberg, Leleti Khumalo and Miriam Makeba, carries Soweto to the world.
Cry, the Beloved Country premieres in New York for Nelson Mandela and Hillary Rodham Clinton, a benefit for the Mandela Children's Fund.
Yesterday, told in Zulu, becomes South Africa's first Academy Award nomination. A Peabody Award follows in 2005.
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom reaches the screen, sixteen years from the rights Mandela granted in person. A Golden Globe for Best Original Song.
Elected to the International Olympic Committee in Rio. Later chairs the IOC Communications Commission and joins the LA 2028 Coordination Commission.
The Road Home, on Masekela, Makeba and Paul Simon, with Cynthia Erivo, in production for StudioCanal. Sarafina! is remastered in IMAX for its fiftieth year.
Recognition
Honoured at home and in the world.
- Peabody Award, for Yesterday, 2005
- Crystal Award, World Economic Forum
- Golden Horn Lifetime Achievement Award, inaugural, SAFTAs 2006
- World Visionary Award, Palm Beach International Film Festival, 2007
- Legacy Award, International Women's Forum, 2015, the first man to receive it
- Member, International Olympic Committee, since 2016
“The moving image has the power to enchant audiences, and the big theatre experience still has the magic.”
Anant Singh, to Variety, 2013
The films he made