Filming a success story

Anant Singh isn't quite sure how the only South African films selected for the MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) International Film Festival are all films produced by him. There are seven in total and together they make up the spotlight on 25 years of South African cinema.

Well, for one, Singh is one of South Africa's most prolific film financiers. His production house, Videovision Entertainment, has churned out some significant anti-apartheid films made in South Africa including Sarafina, Alan Paton's masterpiece Cry, The Beloved country.

Another significant movie was about Afrikaans small town life was Paljas "" the first South African film to be nominated for the Oscars, and often rated as one of the best films to come out of the country.

The end of apartheid, as Singh says, forced producers and filmmakers to look for subjects besides politics. "Still, 75 per cent of all South African cinema has a social conscience, if not political."

Singh's successes as a producer come from his drive to push his movies through to the right channels. His 2006 produced Yesterday with acclaimed director Darrell Roodt may have been released only in 28 theatres across South Africa but was a hit across film festivals and nominated at the Oscars for best foreign film.

It was the first feature film to have the support of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, which used it as a resource in its social development programme. And it turned profitable. "You have to really locate your audiences and then pound the festival circuit," he adds.

Still, Singh does commercial cinema equally well. He's worked with bankable Hollywood staples like Whoopi Goldberg, Julia Ormond, James Earl Jones and Halle Berry. Mr. Bones, made in 2001, became the highest grossing South African film of all time. In fact, Singh's visit to India has more to do with Mr.

Bones than it has to do with the film festival. He's here to tie up a co-producer for the sequel, which will be shot in India. Will it be Manmohan Shetty's Adlabs? "How did you know?" Singh asks. He claims he is yet undecided, that he's also in talks with Bobby Bedi (Mangal Pandey, The Rising). Meanwhile, Leon Schuster, the film's star and creator, Singh says, is in Kerala, trying to find inspiration for the film journey to India.

But Singh cannot escape meaningful cinema, and his biggest challenge is yet to come. Next year, Singh will begin filming Long Walk to Freedom; Nelson Mandela has granted him the film rights to his autobiography.

"Mandela's story has indubitable cinematic value," says Singh. He adds,"It's going to be an epic film. I have Lawrence of Arabia and Gandhi as my ideals." Seeing how he has a way with subjects as well as access to talent that'll be one to watch out for.