‘Senna is now a part of my life’
Last year, when Formula One came to Delhi, it got people talking. But what has also been the talk of the town since then is the documentary film Senna by Asif Kapadia that features the life and times of Formula One racer Ayrton Senna who was killed in a crash at Tamburello corner while leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
Asif, a British Indian filmmaker with BAFTA to his credit is travelling with the film to different parts of the world with Film Forward — a film festival initiated by Sundance Institute.
The 40-year-old filmmaker is amazed by the response his film has received. “The film has got such a positive response around the world. It’s keeping me in a happy zone,” he says, as he tells us that making the film was a learning experience.
Asif’s first feature, The Warrior starring Irrfan Khan, won him accolades as well as two BAFTA, but it is Senna that made him popular all across as well as won him another BAFTA.
It seems it is right too as the filmmaker shares that by the time he was wrapping up the film, Ayrton Senna became a part of his life.
“The more I got to know about him, the more I started respecting him,” he says, as he tells us that he was never really obsessed with either Formula One or Senna.
“Being a sports freak, I remember watching Senna. But I was never really into F1. It was after I started the film that I learnt a lot about both the things — the sport and Senna’s life. By the end I became a huge fan of the racer. I feel the film is very personal,” he says.
Asif says that when one talks about Senna, one thinks about the racing driver. “But Senna is much more than that. The things that he believed in were even more interesting than his races. His goals, his ideologies to fight against the corruption and politics in Formula One, his interest to do something about the well-being about the society, make him a very rounded character. I learnt during the making that people have to know this other side of Senna as it will inspire them for sure,” says Asif, who is now planning to work on a feature based in India that would star actor Irrfan Khan.
However, his present venture is a documentary on London Olympics.
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