Asif Kapadia

Biography

Asif Kapadia (born 1972) is a British filmmaker.

Academy Award, BAFTA, and Grammy-winning director Asif Kapadia have made his name directing visually striking films exploring ‘outsiders’, characters living in extreme circumstances, and fighting against a corrupt or broken system. 

He has worked in drama and documentaries, Kapadia is best known for his trilogy of narratively driven, archive-constructed documentaries Senna, Amy, and Diego Maradona.

Amy (2015), based on singer Amy Winehouse, had its world premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and it is the highest-grossing British Documentary of all time at the UK box office. 

It also won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, the BAFTA for Best Documentary, a Grammy for Best Music Film, the European Film Award for Best Documentary, and the Grierson Award for Best Documentary.

Kapadia directed the documentary film Senna (2010), based on Ayrton Senna (famous for his achievements in motor racing), which won 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. Senna was nominated for Outstanding British Film of the Year.

Kapadia's narrative debut The Warrior (2001), won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film of the Year and the Award for Special Achievement by a Director, Writer or Producer in their Debut Feature, the film was also nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language.

In 2019, he released the film Diego Maradona, based on Argentine football legend Diego Maradona, with Kapadia stating, “Maradona is the third part of a trilogy about child geniuses and fame.”

In May 2021, he released the musical docuseries 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, based on the book 1971 – Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year, by the British music journalist David Hepworth.