Asif Kapadia

Asif Kapadia (born 1972 in London ) is a British film director . For the documentary Amy (2015) about Amy Winehouse , he won an Oscar and a European Film Award.

life and work

Asif Kapadia was born in Hackney to an Indian - Muslim family. Originally he had no relation to the film scene and instead studied graphic design at the Newport Film School of the University of Wales, Newport . After that, he actually wanted to study architecture . But while he was a student, a friend took him to a film set where he was supposed to work as an assistant. The work fascinated him so much that he changed his plans and took film courses. He then studied at the University of Westminster and the Royal College of Art .

In 2001, a year after graduating from the Royal College of Art, his first feature film, The Warrior, was released . The film, shot in Rajasthan, was shot entirely in Hindi . The main actor was Bollywood star Irrfan Khan . He received a BAFTA award for the film in 2003 and was nominated for an Oscar . The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rejected the film, however, because Hindi was not a British language, so the film could not count as a British contribution.

This was followed in 2006 by the horror film The Return with Sarah Michelle Gellar , his first Hollywood film and at the same time his first flop , which fell far short of expectations. With the 2007 film Far North , he returned to independent film . The film, based on a short story by Sara Maitland , premiered at the Venice International Film Festival .

In 2010 the documentary Senna was released , which traces the life of Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna . It is the most successful British documentary to date. The only international documentary that was even more successful in the UK was Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 . With Senna , Kapadia won both the BAFTA Award and the World Cinema Audience Award Documentary of the Sundance Film Festival 2011.

In 2012 he made the documentary short film The Odyssey , his contribution to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, and draws a picture of the city from a bird's eye view. In addition, archive material from the Olympic Games and various interviews are recorded. He refrains from painting an exclusively positive image of the city. The film aired on Channel 4 and the BBC .

In 2015 he released the documentary Amy about the life and death of the pop singer Amy Winehouse . The critically acclaimed film received the European Film Awards , the Boston Society of Film Critics Award, and an award from the National Board of Review . The film was also nominated for a BAFTA, a Grammy and an Oscar .

In 2019, the documentary Diego Maradona was released about the ups and downs of the exceptional Argentine player during his time in Naples . In addition to triumphs such as the 1986 World Cup victory and the only UEFA Cup win by SCC Napoli , the film focuses on drugs, the Camorra entanglements and the veneration of saints by Italian fans.