SEX, DRUGS & A SHOCKING GOAL
After acclaimed studies of Amy Winehouse and Ayrton Senna, filmmaker Asif Kapadia has focussed on enigmatic football genius Diego Maradona’s tumultuous late 1980s. GEORGIA HUMPHREYS asked him about his time with the controversial star
ASIF KAPADIA is treading new territory in his latest piece of work. The London-born director, 47, has previously found success with Amy, the Oscar-winning documentary about British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse, and Senna, which centres around Brazilian Formula One star Ayrton Senna.
But while they were “sad and tragic stories of two brilliant people dying very young”, new feature Diego Maradona “became an idea of, what happens if you get old and you’ve got this amazing gift?”.
Incorporating never-seen-before footage and interviews with Maradona himself, it explores the career of one of the greatest footballers of all time, while also looking into the Argentinian’s “crazy” personal life.
As a big football fan, it was an idea that had been in the back of Asif’s head since he was a student.
“I didn’t know what the story was going to be,” he confides. “I didn’t know whether or not I’d like him, even. It’s actually happened along the way.
“I didn’t love Senna going in, I didn’t really necessarily love Amy going in; it was during the process I kind of fell in love with them.”
When the Maradona project first started, back in 2015/2016, the filmmaker viewed the documentary as the final instalment of a “trilogy” (Senna and Amy were parts one and two).
“I thought, ‘Well, this might be the last chance I get to make a feature film like this again’,” he elaborates.
“I really enjoyed watching Amy and
Senna on a big screen
with an audience – quite collective emotions and experiences.
“I thought, ‘I’d love to see this [Diego Maradona] in Argentina with a crowd, or Naples with a crowd, or even in England’.” Asif, who’s married to writer and director Victoria Harwood, admits it was daunting to think about meeting the notorious sportsman, who is now aged 58 and lives in Dubai.
After all, as Asif says, he’s not “necessarily very lovable and likeable when you think about him”. Then, there’s the challenge of the language barrier – Maradona doesn’t speak English, and Kapadia doesn’t speak Spanish or Italian.
The story focuses primarily on the protagonist’s time at Italian club Napoli. They were struggling and run down, but the footballer, who had won the World Cup with Argentina in 1986, ended up leading them to win two national league titles in 1987 and 1990.
During that time, Maradona’s cocaine addiction was spiralling out of control, and he was also beginning to associate