Anant Singh
Based in South Africa and recognised as the country’s leading independent producer, with more than 80 feature films and TV projects under his banner Distant Horizon, Anant Singh has acquired the rights to produce a limited series based on Roger Kahn’s best-selling classic sports novel, The Boys of Summer. Discussions are currently in progress for a writer and production partner; whilst The Boys of Summer is set against the world of baseball, baseball is only the backdrop for the story.
Speaking from South Africa, where as Chief Executive and Chairman of the Videovision Group of Companies he has built a conglomerate that spans production, distribution, cinemas and Cape Town Studios, his passion has being foremost as a producer of meaningful and riveting material for projects and the love of South Africa where he has steadfastly been based.
Singh said: “My friend, the late Wall Street financier Ted Forstmann, who was passionate about the book, introduced me to the remarkable story of The Boys of Summer. I knew nothing about baseball, but when I read the book, I immediately saw his vision for a film. The Boys of Summer is a seminal work by Roger Kahn which is more than just a story of baseball. It’s a human story that tells of sports heroes in the post-World War II era when family values and the spirit of community mattered most. This is so needed, especially in our society today.”
While The Boys of Summer is set against the world of baseball, the canvas is actually much larger – it is about American social change, corporate greed and cultural identity. It follows the story of a group of mismatched talents (they were called losers and clutch-artists) who are thrown together in a racial experiment (the integration of national baseball) but who go on, through both internal and external strife, to become the best team in the nation. We see it as “The Right Stuff” – men in a race against time who are at first despised for breaking social norms but who become beloved heroes.
The limited series is not about individual games and who won and who scored, but about the characters, their lives, their wives and children, and the impact historical events had upon them. And where it left them – one top player, for example, ended up being a security guard at the World Trade Tower.
Roger Kahn grew up in the shadow of Ebberts Field in Brooklyn and witnessed the golden years of the Brooklyn Dodger’s mythology. He said: “It’s been a dream of mine to see the story told in The Boys of Summer made for the screen.”
The development of a limited series of The Boys of Summer is testament to Forstmann’s vision of bringing to life one of the greatest books on American sports history.
For all his impressive worldwide success, he remains the most modest individual, according to those who have known him since his groundbreaking film Sarafina!.
Sarafina! took a look at the then Apartheid system in South Africa and one young girl’s determination to challenge it, and preserve the language of Afrikaans as the official language in her school. Sarafina! starred Whoopi Goldberg and jumpstarted the career of South African actress Leleti Khumalo (Hotel Rwanda, Invictus,Yesterday).
About Anant Singh
Anant Singh, South Africa’s leading film producer, has made more than 80 feature films, including the Academy Award® nominated films: Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and Yesterday, as well as notable films such as The First Grader; Red Dust; Cry, The Beloved Country; Sarafina!; Remember; Shepherds and Butchers and The Song of Names. Singh is President of Distant Horizon; Chief Executive and Chairman of the Videovision Group of Companies; Chairman of Cape Town Film Studios; Member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and Member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
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