From the team behind Senna and Amy
Is there a better subject in all of football for a film than Diego Maradona?
The highs and the lows, the controversies, the sublime football, the off the field antics – it has everything.
Which means we’re thankful that the first big-screen take on the Argentinian legend is being handled by Asif Kapadia, the Oscar and BAFTA winning director of Amy and Senna – the excellent documentaries about Amy Winehouse and Ayrton Senna respectively.
Simply titled Diego Maradona, the documentary has been put together from over 500 hours of unseen footage, and made with the full co-operation of the man himself.
The first clip has just been released, showing Maradona causing havoc at a press conference while at Napoli.
The official synopsis reads:
On 5th July 1984, Diego Maradona arrived in Naples for a world-record fee and for seven years all hell broke loose. The world’s most celebrated football genius and the most dysfunctional city in Europe were a perfect match for each other. Maradona was blessed on the field but cursed off it; the charismatic Argentine, quickly led Naples to their first-ever title. It was the stuff of dreams. But there was a price… Diego could do as he pleased whilst performing miracles on the pitch, but when the magic faded he became a prisoner of the city.
The third film from the Academy Award- and BAFTA-winning team behind Senna and Amy, the film is constructed from over 500 hours of never-before-seen footage from Maradona’s personal archive with the full support of the man himself.
Diego Maradona is in cinemas June 14th.