|
Anant Singh a juror at De Niros
Tribeca Film Festival
DURBAN, MAY 05, 2004
Anant Singh, widely acknowledged as South Africa's pre-eminent
film producer, has been invited to serve as a juror of the 2004
Tribeca Film Festival by Robert De Niro, founder member of the Festival.
Other jurors at the Festival this year include Ellen Barkin, Glenn
Close, Whoopi Goldberg and Queen Noor of Jordan.
The Festival takes place in New York from May 1 - 9. It was founded
in January 2002 as a public charity by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal,
Martin Scorsese, and Craig Hatkoff to inject new life into a degenerating
New York neighborhood and has become one of the major film festivals
in the United States. This year's festival has been expanded to
include a New York celebration of the Tenth Anniversary of South
African Democracy, which will then continue with a special partnership
between South Africa and the Tribeca Film Institute.
The Festival will also be featuring eight films from South Africa,
including: "Cry, The Beloved Country" which was produced
by Singh. There will be a gala screening of the film on 4 May with
Archbishop Desmond Tutu as guest of honour.
The other South African films included on the programme include:
"Open a Door - South Africa: Chicken and Eggs", "The
Man Who Stole My Mother's Face", "Mix", "With
All My Children", "Being Pavarotti", "Cape of
Good Hope" and "Cinderella of the Cape Flats".
"I am honoured by the invitation from Tribeca to be a juror
at this year's Festival," said Singh. "I feel proud by
this acknowledgement, especially as a South African filmmaker in
our country's 10th year of democracy. It is also opportune that
the Tribeca Film Institute has created a special partnership with
South Africa in this special year. This is certainly as a result
of Robert de Niro's visit to South Africa in July of last year when
he fell in love with the country, and I am thrilled to be a part
of this initiative," continued Singh.
Indian cinema
Singh, who has won great acclaim for many of his productions is
a close friend of Indian cinema icon Amitabh Bachchan, with whom
he co-produced one of the biggest live Bollywood stage shows in
South Africa three years ago.
The show featured Bachchan and eight other top Bollywood actors
and actresses in a spectacle of colour, light and sound at a stadium
in Durban packed out by 45,000 people.
An earlier show with Bachchan, the " Jumma Chumma World Tour",
brought to the same stadium by Singh a decade earlier, was the first
of its kind in South Africa, attracting 60,000 people.
Video Vision has also distributed several Bollywood movies in South
Africa in the past few years.
Singh takes
SA's democracy films to Cannes
Leading South African film producer, Anant Singh announced today
that two of the most profound films produced by him will be screening
in the South African Retrospective in Cannes this year: Sarafina!
and Cry, The Beloved Country.
The films, "Sarafina!" and "Cry, The Beloved Country
which were produced at critical junctures in South Africa's liberation
history, are part of a programme in Cannes that celebrates South
Africa's 10 Years Of Democracy.
Sarafina! starring Whoopi Goldberg and Leleti Khumalo was made
shortly after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. The film
rights to Cry, The Beloved Country, which stars James Earl Jones
and Richard Harris, is based on the classic novel by Alan Paton,
and was acquired by Singh prior to South Africa becoming a democracy,
however, Singh waited until after the country attained democracy
to produce the film.
"We are delighted to be presenting Sarafina! and Cry, The
Beloved Country in Cannes this year. They are the most appropriate
films to be celebrating South Africa's Ten Years of Democracy,"
said Anant Singh. "Sarafina ! pays tribute to Nelson Mandela
and his efforts to bring democracy to South Africa while, Cry, The
Beloved Country tells the story of reconciliation between two fathers,
one black and the other white, illustrating the wider miracle of
reconciliation in South Africa which has contributed to a successful
democracy which is now 10 years old," continued Singh.
|