Asif Kapadia Quotes

My team and I used the actual footage to create a three-act story of the life of Ayrton Senna. There are no talking heads and no voiceover. Senna narrates his own epic, dramatic, thrilling journey.

- Asif Kapadia

There are no drivers like Formula One drivers. They are engineers, in a way. They are driving manual cars one-handed at 200 miles per hour around streets in Monaco. These cars use the ultimate in technology.

- Asif Kapadia

The Monaco Grand Prix is in May right around the time of Cannes.

- Asif Kapadia

The Tour de France would make a great movie. Drugs, corruption, political chicanery, guys risking their lives - everything you need for a great sports drama.

- Asif Kapadia

I worked with Michelle Yeoh on my last film, 'Far North,' and her partner is Jean Todt; at the time, he ran Ferrari. So I went as a VIP to the British grand prix.

- Asif Kapadia

The worst thing ever for me is go see a movie, and the next day I go, 'What did I do last night? I have no memory of this $300 million movie I watched because I felt nothing.'

- Asif Kapadia

I wanted to make a film that wouldn't just appeal to Formula One fans. That's what the great sports documentaries do - 'Hoop Dreams,' 'When We Were Kings' - they're human dramas first, sport second, if at all.

- Asif Kapadia

'Do the Right Thing' has been a big influence on me. I saw it when it first came out in 1989. I was about 18, and it blew me away on many levels - I had never seen anything like it before.

- Asif Kapadia

We spent four days filming in a helicopter. I had never seen London from that viewpoint - you get a sense of how big it is and how easy it is to get lost. There was one day when we couldn't find Brick Lane: we spent 25 minutes looking and then realised it was directly below us.

- Asif Kapadia

Martin Scorsese was being given an honorary doctorate, and one of the tutors asked if there was a student film he particularly liked. He mentioned our film. There was a dinner after the final show just for the tutors, but I was smuggled in to meet Scorsese over dessert.

- Asif Kapadia

There's this great TV show we have called 'Later... with Jools Holland', a live-music show on Friday nights. Anyone and everyone's been on it.

- Asif Kapadia

I want to make my own films from my own scripts based on stories I want to tell, but they take time to put together.

- Asif Kapadia

As much as I love creating entertaining visuals, I love toying with the pace of a movie and trying to perfect that. It's imperative to the impact: faster cuts, cuts at the right moments that meld with the tenor of a scene. Creating and maintaining that feeling.

- Asif Kapadia

As a kid, I thought movies were boring. My parents would hire VHS recorders for the weekend and watch Bollywood movies. I'd get bored and go out to Stoke Newington common to play football.

- Asif Kapadia

My background is from India, and I always get asked, 'When are you going to do an Indian film, a musical or Bollywood film?'

- Asif Kapadia

I don't normally make documentaries. I'm a drama director. I've made a few short docs, but I don't like talking heads or 'voice of God' narrators.

- Asif Kapadia

'Senna' took five years, 'Amy' took three years. You try and say, 'Look, there's no deadline.' That's important. Just saying, 'We've got to make the film. And once the film's ready, it will be out there.'

- Asif Kapadia

You don't have to be someone who likes walking a tightrope across the Twin Towers to watch 'Man On Wire.'

- Asif Kapadia

'Amy' is somewhere in the middle of authorized and unauthorized.

- Asif Kapadia

I used to live in Pillgwenlly, and there was this old Italian pizzeria that used to be there with a really amazing character who ran it.

- Asif Kapadia

My background is Indian, so I believe in a spiritual idea that there is another level, another layer or layers, if you will, above us. I believe that there are elements that allow things to be drawn together, a sort of energy.

- Asif Kapadia

The thing people don't get about Indian films is that the songs are the story.

- Asif Kapadia

We were working on 'Senna' for a long time before we were fully financed, so we didn't actually have an editor for a while.

- Asif Kapadia

In a film called 'Senna,' the clue is in the title, and we have a Brazilian badge on our sleeve as we were making it. We were making it from Senna's point of view, with Senna narrating it.

- Asif Kapadia

You can't stop people watching on mobiles, but I hope the old fashioned idea of sitting in a dark room with a big screen with a group of strangers lives on forever.

- Asif Kapadia

I wanted to study film at an art school - I loved the idea of being surrounded by designers and artists. We were encouraged to be experimental.

- Asif Kapadia

I was a sports fan long before I had any interest in film-making.

- Asif Kapadia

My wife Victoria Harwood was art director on 'Far North,' and she had designed my student film, 'The Sheep Thief.'

- Asif Kapadia

On 'Senna,' it got to the point where there was so much footage that our first editor had the wild suggestion that we only use the archive.

- Asif Kapadia

When I was given the opportunity to direct 'Senna,' I decided the film had to work for audiences who disliked sport or had never seen a Formula One race in their lives. It had to thrill and emotionally engage people who had never heard of Ayrton Senna.

- Asif Kapadia

I don't have these crazy deadlines. I don't have this, 'Oh it's got to be out tomorrow.' I don't like working like that.

- Asif Kapadia

My family didn't film anything. But then you look deeper and realize, maybe there are photographs, there are things. It's also context: You give something a context, and suddenly it becomes really deep or meaningful footage.

- Asif Kapadia

I never know going in if I've even got a movie to make. Once you start making a film, you hope there's going to be enough material! My job as a director is always to push for more.

- Asif Kapadia

I made three short films of my own which I wrote, produced, directed... you did everything in those days. My favourite one was something I shot on VHS... a little documentary.

- Asif Kapadia

Boxing is made for film - there is corruption, violence, tragedy and the chance that the underdog can catch the champion with one lucky punch.

- Asif Kapadia

My films often have a spiritual dimension which comes from my Muslim background, and I'm happy to tackle that in cinema.

- Asif Kapadia

I'm a sport fan. So, I have always watched everything, and I used to watch racing. Formula One was always on. The genius about it is that it's on at lunchtime on a Sunday.

- Asif Kapadia

To be teammates in Formula One actually means you are first rivals, not really mates.

- Asif Kapadia

Directing can be very lonely and quite intimidating.

- Asif Kapadia

As a filmmaker, you complete a film you have spent years obsessively making, and you know the release prints will never look quite the same; prints get scratched and dirty.

- Asif Kapadia

Hopefully with digital projection, a film will always look the way the filmmaker intended.

- Asif Kapadia

I'd always intended to make 'Far North' straight after 'The Warrior.' We had the rights to the short story, the script was in development, and I knew where I wanted to shoot it. It just took a long time getting the script together and raising the finance.

- Asif Kapadia

As far as I'm concerned, I make movies.

- Asif Kapadia

Hopefully, when people see 'Senna', they will understand why this inspirational story needed to be told, why it had to be made as a movie for the big screen, and why it is a film for everyone.

- Asif Kapadia

Weirdly enough, I live in London - was born there and have lived there all my life - but I hadn't made a film in London for a long time. I hadn't found the right subject. I liked going away, to some far flung place.

- Asif Kapadia

It's always great to be able to go to a premiere with the actors there.

- Asif Kapadia

After Newport, I worked in television for a while, and then I went to The Royal College Of Art and did a master's degree. I really did study quite a lot!

- Asif Kapadia

The big thing for me is to make films that you feel, whether you feel happy, whether you feel sad, whether you feel sick; it's to make the audience feel so that the next day they remember what they saw.

- Asif Kapadia

I made several short films with very little dialogue. I'm still not a fan of talking heads. My stories are told with images as much as possible.

- Asif Kapadia

Real life is far more complicated than fiction.

- Asif Kapadia

I worked in TV for a short time and couldn't stand the fact that we'd always be filming someone talking, just giving information.

- Asif Kapadia

I studied graphic design originally. I used to like drawing, and I was quite into technical drawing. I was always interested in the visual medium, but I thought I was going to be an architect or something like that, but it's quite a lonely job.

- Asif Kapadia

I never realised 'The Return' would take so long to make - it was a very tough 'political experience,' and the post production in L.A. seemed to go on forever.

- Asif Kapadia

I don't really rely on watching video monitors. They put you at a certain distance from your actors, and it makes me feel less a part of what's really happening in the scene.

- Asif Kapadia

While still a young student at film school, I was lucky enough to get a golden ticket to a Martin Scorsese master class at BAFTA in Piccadilly: fancy, but technically still 'the flicks'.

- Asif Kapadia

Why make a movie about Ayrton Senna? Someone who drove around in circles at 200mph in a car that looked like a giant cigarette packet? Why would anyone who isn't already a fan of Formula 1 care?

- Asif Kapadia

We were studying at Newport Film School, and I found that the only way for me to make films - because you need people and you need equipment - was that I had to be a student.

- Asif Kapadia

My interest in filmmaking was always very much the visuals and images.

- Asif Kapadia

The subjects have to come with questions for me. I don't make films where I'm a massive fan.

- Asif Kapadia

I often make films about subjects I don't really know much about. Maybe it's laziness, but I don't go in there having done a tonne of research; the research happens while I'm making the film.

- Asif Kapadia

I'm an ordinary Hackney boy, and I can talk to people.

- Asif Kapadia

People have always been recording what's going on around them in one form or another.

- Asif Kapadia

For me, 'Amy' is a very dark film about love.

- Asif Kapadia

A big part of my filmmaking is that I can go somewhere new and, visually, be excited by it.

- Asif Kapadia

I just loved films. I knew I wanted to work on film, not video.

- Asif Kapadia

I lived in Camden, Primrose Hill and Kentish Town for 10 years.

- Asif Kapadia

We want to make movies for the big screen. We want people to go to the theater and feel like they're watching a movie.

- Asif Kapadia

I love telling stories with images. But I think there's more to just saying a movie is great visually.

- Asif Kapadia

A lot of the time when I'm working, I'm abroad.

- Asif Kapadia

If I'm going to do something, I'm going to spend however long it takes to get it right.

- Asif Kapadia