Anant Singh: Last News

Mbongeni Ngema, the South African creator of Whoopi Goldberg film Sarafina!, has died in a car accident. He was aged 68.

By Erik Pedersen

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefVeteran South African filmmaker Anant Singh has penned an open letter comparing the problems of racism within his own country with the killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks at the hands of police in the U.S.The letter, which he calls “All Lives Matter, Especially Black Lives,” is published on the 44th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, in which 69 people were killed by South African police. It is both angry and surprisingly hopeful.“No matter how powerful, armed and hateful the regime was, we always knew that one day our freedom would come,” Singh said of the forces that threw Nelson Mandela into jail for 27 years between 1962 and 1990.

Anant Singh Editor’s note: Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, veteran South African producer Anant Singh, whose films include Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom and 2004 Oscar nominee Yesterday, has penned an open letter on the 44th anniversary of the historic student uprising in Soweto, South Africa. The anti-Apartheid uprising was a series of demonstrations led by black students, many of them children, in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the main language in local schools.