Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #53. Asif Kapadia – Maradona

Published on November 22, 2018

With a bit of Hand of God luck, football fans (some people call it soccer) would rejoice if Asif Kapadia made his third trip this decade at the fest with Maradona. Closing out his trilogy, which began with Sundance hit Senna (2010), Kapadia who also moonlights as a narrative filmmaker (Ali and Nino premiered at the fest in 2016). With the tagline “rebel, hero, hustler, god”, the big question: would Maradona make a Main Street appearance? If so, I want to be at that party.

Gist: 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. Constructed from over 500 hours of never-before-seen footage, this documentary centers on the career of celebrated football player Diego Maradona who played for SSC Napoli in the 1980s.

Production Co./Producers: James Gay-Rees (Oasis: Supersonic), Paul Martin (Ronaldo).

Prediction: Documentary Premieres.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). TBD (international).

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).