Asif Kapadia
Asif Kapadia
Asif Kapadiais a British filmmaker. He directed several award-winning films, including The Sheep Thief, winner of the 2nd Prize Cinéfondation for Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival, The Warrior, the BAFTA Award for Best British Film 2003 and Senna, winner of the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, the BAFTA Award for Best Editing and the World Cinema Audience Award Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival 2011 and Amywhich has become the highest grossing documentary of all time in the...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionDirector
dimension films happy muslim spiritual tackle
My films often have a spiritual dimension which comes from my Muslim background, and I'm happy to tackle that in cinema.
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My background is Indian, so I believe in a spiritual idea that there is another level, another layer or layers, if you will, above us. I believe that there are elements that allow things to be drawn together, a sort of energy.
bollywood musical
My background is from India, and I always get asked, 'When are you going to do an Indian film, a musical or Bollywood film?'
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My family didn't film anything. But then you look deeper and realize, maybe there are photographs, there are things. It's also context: You give something a context, and suddenly it becomes really deep or meaningful footage.
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My team and I used the actual footage to create a three-act story of the life of Ayrton Senna. There are no talking heads and no voiceover. Senna narrates his own epic, dramatic, thrilling journey.
editor footage
On 'Senna,' it got to the point where there was so much footage that our first editor had the wild suggestion that we only use the archive.
movies people
We want to make movies for the big screen. We want people to go to the theater and feel like they're watching a movie.
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Why make a movie about Ayrton Senna? Someone who drove around in circles at 200mph in a car that looked like a giant cigarette packet? Why would anyone who isn't already a fan of Formula 1 care?
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When I was given the opportunity to direct 'Senna,' I decided the film had to work for audiences who disliked sport or had never seen a Formula One race in their lives. It had to thrill and emotionally engage people who had never heard of Ayrton Senna.
I don't have these crazy deadlines. I don't have this, 'Oh it's got to be out tomorrow.' I don't like working like that.
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I'd always intended to make 'Far North' straight after 'The Warrior.' We had the rights to the short story, the script was in development, and I knew where I wanted to shoot it. It just took a long time getting the script together and raising the finance.
If I'm going to do something, I'm going to spend however long it takes to get it right.
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I don't normally make documentaries. I'm a drama director. I've made a few short docs, but I don't like talking heads or 'voice of God' narrators.
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I love telling stories with images. But I think there's more to just saying a movie is great visually.