Arts Foundation fellow Kapadia, who directed the acclaimed Ayrton Senna documentary “Senna” and the Amy Winehouse docu-film “Amy”, garnered positive feedback this week from film critics in France courtesy of his powerful latest offering surrounding the beloved Argentinean national treasure and FIFA World Cup winner, Diego Armando Maradona.
The “Diego Maradona” docu-film, constructed from 500 hours of El Diego’s legendary tenure at Serie A club Napoli, witnesses the breathtaking highs and controversial lows of the outspokenly candid Argentinean hero and streetwise urchin from the streets of Buenos Aires who won the hearts of Neopolitans.
While making the film in 2017 he answered a few questions to the Guardian about the process and decision to make the film.
How’s the Maradona film shaping up?
I’m deep in the middle of putting it all together. It’s going well. The Diego idea actually came about a long time ago, before I’d made Senna. He was in the ether in my brain as a character. In my mind, this is the third part of a trilogy of child geniuses and fame, and the effect it can have, and what they mean to their country and what they mean to people. Again, another person in various ways who felt like he was fighting a system.
Does it make a difference that your subject is still alive this time [Kapadia had Maradona’s support]?
That part was a conscious decision, after the first two films were about people who tragically died young. To test myself with somebody who is still around and who has a longer life… And it’s a different type of story – of what happens when you get older if you’re a star.