Spouse Lynette Singer | Books Lords of the Khyber | |
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Awards News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Historical Programming – Long Form Nominations Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special Movies Night Will Fall, Into the Inferno, The Wild Blue Yonder, La bohème Similar Sidney Bernstein - Baron Be, Werner Herzog, Signe Byrge Sørensen, Lucki Stipetić, Joram ten Brink | ||
André Singer is a documentary film-maker and anthropologist. He is currently CEO of Spring Films Ltd of London and is President of The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Having studied at Keble College, Oxford University under Professor Sir E.E. Evans-Pritchard specializing in Iran and Afghanistan for his doctorate, he moved to television in the early 1970s as a researcher, then producer and director for the Disappearing World series at Granada Television.
As a director he made several award –winning films including the Strangers Abroad series, Khyber and Witchcraft Among the Azande. His television career has moved between working for several broadcasters including Commissioning editor for Discovery Channel, Europe; Senior Vice-President for Alliance Atlantis; and the BBC where he headed the Independent Documentary Unit.
At the BBC, he founded and commissioned for the Fine Cut series working with such international filmmakers as Jean Rouch, Werner Herzog, DA Pennebaker, Bob Drew, Fred Wiseman and Vikram Jayanti.
In the independent sector, Singer was instrumental for several production companies including InCa, Café Productions, West Park Pictures, and currently Spring Films. He has been responsible in an executive or producer role for hundreds of documentary productions for cinema and television including the Oscar nominated Prisoner of Paradise (Malcolm Clarke); Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (Vikram Jayanti); and the International Critics Award film The Wild Blue Yonder (Werner Herzog). Since 1992, Singer has worked with Herzog as a producer or Executive producer on eight productions including Into the Abyss (2011) and is Producer alongside Lucki Stipetic on Werner Herzog's latest documentary Into the Inferno (2016) about mankind's relationship with volcanoes.. He was also an Executive Producer on the multi-award winning documentaries by Joshua Oppenheimer The Act of Killing (2012) and "The Look of Silence" (2014). His latest film as director is Night Will Fall (2014), described by Stephen Fry as "incredibly dark, deep, disturbing, shocking and brilliant". Night Will Fall was awarded the Focal Award, a Peabody Award and won best Documentary at the Moscow Jewish Film Festival in 2015; and won the Royal Television Society Award for Historical Documentary and the Emmy for Outstanding Historical Film (Long-form) in 2016. For 2017 he has finished a film about the legacy of the Cold War nuclear weapon testing rivalry between the Soviet Union (in Kazakhstan) and the USA (in Nevada). The film Where the Wind Blew will be released in cinemas and then television in 2017.
Singer was given the Oscar Pomilio Award for Ethics in Pescara, Italy in 2015. He is the author of five books of non-fiction including, with his wife Lynette, Divine Magic : The World of the Supernatural. Singer was elected President of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 2014 and was awarded their Patrons Medal in 2007. He is Adjunct Professor of the Practice of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. is Visiting Professor of Film at the University of Westminster and was on the Film and Television Committee of BAFTA, The British Academy of Film and Television Arts between 2010 and 2013.