Maradona film premieres in Cannes in legend's absence

British director Asif Kapadia's highly anticipated third documentary feature, "Diego Maradona", premiered Out of Competition at the 72 nd Cannes Film Festival on Sunday night.

Expectations ran high but the football legend could not make it to the festival owing to a shoulder surgery that he is undergoing in Mexico.

Kapadia, an Indian-origin filmmaker whose association with the festival goes back to 1998, when he won the Cinefondation second prize for his Royal College of Art graduation film "The Sheep Thief", made his narrative feature debut with "The Warrior" (2001), starring Irrfan Khan.

He has since earned the reputation as one of the world's most bankable biographical documentary makers following the success of the BAFTA Award-winning "Senna" and the Oscar-winning "Amy".

"Both those documentaries," the director said during a Talent Talk session organised in the UK Film Centre in its Pavilion here, "were about great people who died young. I did not want to repeat myself. That is why it felt right to do a film on a man who is still living and growing old."
"This film was a new challenge," said Kapadia. "Diego wasn't the most reliable witness. His version of events was often exactly the opposite of what is on record. But he is obviously a very charismatic person and a great storyteller."