BIOGRAPHY

Internationally acclaimed film producer and best-selling author Lynn Santer, enterprisingly sent her first story “The Magical Scarecrow” to a publisher at the tender age of nine years old. Even then, the publisher recognised her writing skills and encouraged her to write again when she was “a little older”.

After taking her parents’ advice to pursue “a proper career”, Lynn qualified in both finance and law from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the University of Sydney, after her family emigrated from London in 1978. She would not write professionally again until the early 90s when, weary with her career in high finance, her creative brain took control once more. Initially, Lynn wrote, produced and directed short live theatre productions that won a string of awards. She also wrote her first novel “Sins of Life” (Life Insurance), which ultimately would become the number one selling title for its publisher in the UK (1999) and was optioned by Scorpio Productions in Pinewood Studios UK. 

Prior to Lynn’s writing/producing career, she had been a special consultant on pension’s reform legislation to the British Government, consulting one-on-one in 10 Downing Street and addressing committees in the House of Commons and the European Union. 

Spurred on by her success with “Sins of Life”, Lynn wrote two more novels in the “Sins of Life” series and rewrote her first foray in the literary world “The Magical Scarecrows” (now plural) as a series of children’s books designed to be a philanthropic initiative. This series subsequently gained acceptance worldwide and earned Lynn a nomination for the “Pride of Australia” medal. 

See: www.TheMagicalScarecrows.com

Through her increasing profile, Lynn met Australian based, multi-award-winning American producer/director, Mark DeFriest, who became her first mentor in feature screenplay screenwriting. She also became a much sought after celebrity biographer. From the early 2000s for the following ten years, Lynn wrote authorized biographies or ghost wrote autobiographies for many notable figures including a world champion figure skater, the world’s first female rescue helicopter pilot, a cosmically flamboyant psychic often deployed by law enforcement agencies, the former personal pilot of the heinous Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and pioneer of the reality TV series genre, Australian adventurer Alby Mangels. She also became Mangels’ professional manager up until 2015.

By 2001, Lynn’s lifelong passion for the preservation of endangered big cats was asserting itself as the number one priority in her life. Together with Hollywood legend, Tippi Hedren (whom Lynn had met and immediately bonded with in 1999), Lynn organised a glitzy event in the Gold Coast’s Jupiters Casino, an event which became the launching pad for an odyssey twenty years in the making and still playing out to this day. See: www.LandOfTheFreeMovie.com

Lynn’s crusade to save endangered species began as a child watching her father’s home-made, David Attenborough style documentaries of his visits to “the Dark Continent”, which he showed to little Lynn and her friends in the attic cinema of their London home. From there, her fascination became a love and then a passion to conserve these precious lives not just for future generations but for the future health and biodiversity of our planet… and because they have a right to live in dignity, security and freedom. She has been winning awards for her work with animals since she was 11 years old and more recently was made an Honorary Life Member of The AfriCat Foundation.

As an adult, Lynn visited Africa many times, worked hands-on with cheetah in the AfriCat Foundation, Namibia, piloted a 12 seater Cessna caravan over the Kruger National Park and tracked wild predators on foot with only an indigenous guard and tracker accompanying her.

By the mid 20-teens, Hollywood was calling. Heading over to Tinsel Town, Lynn met Emmy nominated PGA producer James Ganiere, who subsequently became Lynn’s firm friend and production partner. Another, perhaps surprising, friend who also became involved in several of Lynn’s planned productions was none other than the iconic Priscilla Presley. 

In 2016, Lynn suffered a serious blow in the form of severe bilateral nerve damage to her arms. Several lengthy surgeries and protracted rehabilitation took out most of the year. With the dawning realization that she would never write (at least with hands on keyboard) ever again, Lynn had to reinvent herself and did so employing a stable of successful writers around the world.

From 2017, Lynn developed the raw material of “Little Hawk” by A.J. Cootes into a potential blockbusting new SciFi franchise called “Almythea” (recently rebranded to “Divided World”). The first book in the series was launched with tremendous success in November 2019 with Stargate’s Cliff Simon, who was set to play one of the key roles in the movies until a tragic accident cost his life in March 2021. 

Residing on a tranquil lake in the Gold Coast of Australia, which she has transformed into a native wildlife haven, Lynn lives with her buoyant 86 year old mother. From there she pulls the strings of her Hollywood and international teams. This tropical paradise in idyllic Mermaid Waters has also been the inspiration for a brand new animated feature musical project called “Swan Song” that Lynn is developing with Priscilla Presley. In advance of the movie, Lynn’s illustrated children’s book, audio musical book and musical album of the same name will be released for Christmas 2022. This will be her third collaboration with the inspirational Mzansi Youth Choir of Soweto, children plucked from the slums of Soweto in South Africa, often with no parents, no inside toilet facilities and not enough food to eat daily, who were trained in their God-given gift of music. These colourful children have gone on to receive standing ovations in the Royal Albert Hall London and they have performed with such diverse superstars as Beyonce to Andrea Bocelli. One of their main composers is Grammy Nominated Mauritz Lotz. 

​

Among her other current projects are "The Legacy of Gaston Leroux", a bio epic film about the author of "Phantom of the Opera" (first released as a novella July 2022 as "Gaston Leroux – The man behind the man behind the mask") and the second "Land of the Free" film "Land of the Free: Out of the Shadows",

which had its world premiere in London’s House of Commons June 2022.