PRODUCTION
INTERVIEW ASIF KAPADIA
I am somebody from an Asian background, from
a Muslim background. I’m not somebody who came into the business because I had family or friends in it. I didn’t get any favours. You had to prove yourself to people. I also came from a very working class background in Hackney in the 70s. My dad was a postman, my mom was a machinist. I’m one of those kids that had free school dinners, I had help with my school uniform, I got a grant to go to college and to university, I got a bursary to do my masters. And all of that means you become someone
who then can pay taxes and create businesses and make films that help the industry and other people. You give it all back if you have an opportunity. I’m very passionate about all of that, because I think, if people like me don’t get through, then you end up with a very small circle of people who basically create the story, create the narrative, become the politician, become the producer, become the writer, director. And they tell stories about themselves and their experiences.”
ON CINEMAS VS STREAMERS “A couple of years ago, when making Diego Maradona, there was real interest from the streamers. They were making some really big offers. And for whatever reason, I wanted Diego Maradona to be seen on the big screen, by a live audience around the world. I always felt, I don’t know why, it could well
ON HIS UPCOMING APPLE DOCUMENTARY ON MENTAL HEALTH “I’ve been part of a team working on this project. It’s a personal subject really. My mother had issues with mental health and schizophrenia and various people that I know in my family have had issues over the years. I realise that a lot of these issues have been in
my head for a while. Without really consciously knowing it at the time. If I look at Amy, she was a person who was struggling with her own mental health at the time. Diego Maradona has definitely had issues. A lot of people who struggle with things in life then turn to addiction – it becomes a way to escape, to numb the pain.”
ON LOCKDOWN “It has been an interesting year with lots of virtual shooting, working on things, Zoom and phone calls, and not travelling. I started out wanting to make films because I love travel. It’s part of the reason that I kind of ran away with the circus when I was young. Dramas and documentaries have taken me to India, to the Himalayas, to Brazil, and Argentina and the North Pole, and all over Europe and Asia. Then suddenly this year, you’re at home the
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televisual.com Winter 2020
whole time, and you’re still trying to make them. But I had transitioned quite a while ago to working
on my iPad. I have very rarely been a person who is comfortable sitting in an office. So I’ve always worked on my own or away somewhere. I’m often directing by WhatsApp now or working on my iPad. When 2020 came along, it wasn’t actually a big shift for me. When I’m on my iPad, everything I need is on it - I can view cuts, I can give notes, I can send messages. I’m not a fan of the government, and the
way they’ve done things. I’m not a fan of their professional incompetence, which has helped them line their pockets and line their friends pockets and, meanwhile, people are dying. By not acting soon enough, when everyone knew this was coming, it’s led to this mess.”
ON BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTS “People of colour have always known there have been issues to do with racism. It is a real thing. It’s not ever gone away. It was quiet, and then it became more public. Black Lives Matter, I think for a short moment, looked like it was going to really make a difference and to change things. And I think, I hope, it will. The US is very different to the UK, but I think it definitely seems to have landed with people finally.
be the last film I made for the cinema. I could see the industry was changing - where the finance was coming from was changing and so was the audience. I didn’t know that 2020 was going to come along. The film premiered at Cannes last year, and I saw it on the big screen all over the world. I travelled with the film, I got lucky. We basically got the film out. This year everything would be virtual – the film may not have been seen by a live audience. I think if it was happening now, a streamer
would buy it, and then they would get it to a large audience quickly. But you have that strange feeling, which I’m still coming to terms with, of wondering ‘Did anyone see it? And if they did see it, what did they think of it?’ Because you’d never have that opportunity of being in the room hearing the audience reacting. It’s one of the things I love about going to the cinema - feeling the vibe with an audience. If you don’t get that, you’re relying purely on social media and what people say on there. That’s where we are. I think that the industry has changed. I think we’re going into another place right now. [For my next project], I do want to still try to
have a premiere at a festival, I do want to have some form of big screening event as much as possible, but knowing full well there’s a good chance now that the majority of the funding may come from a streamer.”
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