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.