Hackney People
Asif Kapadia
Typical. You wait years for a good sports movie, and then two come along at once.
While cricket documentary 'Fire In Babylon' has captured the imagination of UK audiences, Hackney-born director Asif Kapadia's new film - charting the life of Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna - has won a prestigious Sundance Film Festival award. And its snowballing success and international acclaim has seen screenings expanded to 250 cinemas across the UK.
The director also took a Q&A session when he returned to one of his favourite cinemas, the Rio in Dalston for its local premier on 5 June.
Great sports movies are in the few: 1980 produced boxing classic 'Raging Bull', followed a year later by the brilliant and unintentionally hilarious football-themed 'Escape To Victory'; in 1996 boxing documentary 'When We Were Kings' illuminated the shadowy story behind the Ali-Frazer epic fight 'Rumble In The Jungle'. Asif's 'Senna' follows in that vein and goes beyond his tragic 130mph fatal crash at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. Using only archive footage and voiceovers, the film follows the whole of Ayrton's multi-faceted life; as an outsider, passionate, spiritual, competitive and often the thorn to highly political racing authorities.
Asif says: "We follow his story and see why he does what he does; often it's in answer to things that happened to him that have nothing to do with the sport. The more research I did and footage I saw, the more I liked him."
The director is known for beautifully shot films like 'The Warrior', but this is his first documentary. He remembers watching the San Marino race live from his home at the time in Stoke Newington.
He says: "I'm a big sports fan and I knew the story. I think I was chosen to direct this film because maybe some of the other directors wanted it to be an investigative documentary about F1. That wasn't my thing. I wanted to make a cinematic feature."
After some legal wrangling, Asif was given full access to the F1 archive and, separately, won the backing of the Senna family.
"It was a difficult film to make, but they all are. They take a long time, and there are a lot of creative battles that keep going through your head. But at the end of it, I'm proud of the film and the response has been amazing," he adds.
Was it any different being more an editor of archived videos than being behind the camera? "Directing is directing. I don't operate a camera any more. Other people do the work and your job is to oversee and know when to say no. Low budget films are where you do everything. But a feature is a feature," he says.
Born in the old Hackney Hospital in 1972, Asif went to school at Tyssen primary and Homerton House, and his family still live in Clapton. Getting a still camera from his brother as a teenager piqued his already growing interest in visual arts, but he was not initially interested in film.
He says: "Photography got me into graphic design, then I started helping out on short films - which led to working on more short films - until I realised I really enjoyed it. So I spent summer holidays working on movies for other people. I made my own shorts, and the shorts I directed started to become more successful."
His first distributed short film, 'The Sheep Thief' got a runner-up prize at Cannes Film Festival, then feature 'The Warrior' won a BAFTA. Now living in Finsbury Park, Asif's ties with the borough are still strong. He praises the Rio as 'a fantastic cinema in traditional art house style', adding that his close relationship with Manager Charles Rubenstein has seen many of his films show there.
The key to the success of 'Senna' could be that it transcends sport to reach genuine drama.
Asif explains: "For example, the scene with those drivers meeting (Senna and arch rival Alain Proust), it felt like having Ken Loach dialogue in the middle of an action film, where people are having an argument in a room about something complex and you just follow them. It is just real and that was the bottom line - that whatever happens, it is real."
Curriculum vitae
- 1972 Born at Hackney Hospital
- 1983 Attends Homerton House School
- 1997 Graduates from filmmaking course at Royal College of Art
- 1997 Releases 'The Sheep Thief'
- 2001 First feature, 'The Warrior', wins a BAFTA
- 2007 'Far North', starring Sean Bean, released
- 2011 'Senna' wins World Cinema Audience Award for documentaries at Sundance Film Festival
Page updated: 24 Jun 2011
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