In Asif Kapadia’s filmmaking universe, the most transformative creative moments often come from periods of limitation. The Oscar-winning director of Amy and Senna Works with a method that may seem paradoxical to outsiders: he thrives in restrictions, includes the accidents and mainly protects his vision by maintaining an eye -catching silence until the work is ready to speak for himself.
“I generally have a process to work very quietly and I never press while doing something,” Kapadia explains and sits in his London studio. “I just press when it comes out.” This patient strategy, refined over decades of creating visually amazing stories, has become fundamental to how he builds his cinematic worlds – both in documentary and fiction.
His method begins with a longer period of immersion, where he studies his subjects with an almost anthropological intensity. For SennaHis groundbreaking documentary about Formula One legend Ayrton Senna, a contractual delay that may have demoralized another filmmaker instead became crucial to his vision.
“It was nine or ten months where I was supposed to do so, but the contracts took so long,” he recalls. “I couldn’t hire anyone, I couldn’t shoot anything.” During this limbo, Kapadia would go to its office daily and study Youtube clips by Senna with just one assistant editor and absorb every shade of its subject.
“I had literally worked out how to make the movie with pictures without interviews, with him who told it before I officially started with it,” he says. This approach – Eschewing speaking heads in favor of pure archive depth – would become a signature technique, even if it met significant resistance from producers and studios.
“Everyone is like,” but that’s what documentaries do, “he remembers repeatedly.” “They have someone, the filmmaker, who holds the microphone, the filmmaker’s voiceover, interviews with who is talking.” “The Kapadia’s answer was resolute:” For me it is bad filmmaking. It should just be a movie. “
The shadow of scorsese
While Kapadia has developed its own distinct visual language, he recognizes Martin Scorsese as a persistent influence. The relationship between the two filmmakers has developed in addition to only admiration into a genuine creative dialogue.
“He is someone I know who has seen my films and I have talked to him quite a lot over the years,” says Kapadia. “When I’m in New York I would just call his office and say,“ Look, I’m in New York. “And they would be like,” Yes, come over for tea. “And I would go to his house for a cup of tea.”
What Kapadia values most about Scorsese is not only his narrative technology but his versatility – how the director of Taxi driver and Goodfellas moves fluently between documentary and fiction. “He has always done both documents and drama, and I have always liked it,” Kapadia notes and refers to Scorsese’s documentaries about Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and George Harrison.
The parallels run deeper. Just as Scorsese made the intimate documentary Italian about his parents when he worked with Taxi driverKapadia has developed a rhythm to make smaller, faster projects, while his epic, year -long documentaries are developing at their own pace.
Working quickly and working slowly
In Kapadia’s creative ecosystems there are films on different temporary levels. While SennaThe Amyand 2073 Everyone required about five years to complete, he consciously starts faster projects in the meantime.
“I used to make drama and documentaries at the same time, and now I make a short document while making a longer doctor,” he explains. This approach enables him to maintain creative momentum while his more ambitious works gestate.
During the pandemic he made CreatureA ballet film with choreographer Akram Khan – something completely outside his comfort zone. “I’ve never been to the ballet, I know nothing about ballet, I know nothing about dance,” he admits. Nevertheless, the limitation of a 10-day shoot and a three week editing created an energy that he finds creatively refreshing.
“You are freer,” he says about these faster productions. “The budget is often smaller, or you have a deadline.” This deadline, according to Kapadia, is the essential catalyst for creativity. “What you need in life is a deadline. If you are forced to do something, you will come up with a solution, a creative answer.” His current project on Liverpool football legend Kenny Dalgish follows this rapid strategy.
Document Renaissance
Streaming -eran has fundamentally changed the landscape of documentary filmmakers, a shift that Kapadia recognizes with cautious optimism.
“I think it has changed with Netflix mainly, and people are less worried about language or where the people come from the world,” he notes. “I think we had a boom time at the cinema and then the cinema turned to docs and went against Marvel and comic books and sequels. And then we had a kind of boom time at streamers.”
Kapadia’s own influence on this renaissance is significant. His archive-toast strategy in Senna Helped to create a new framework for documentary story, one that has been extensively imitated – even if he notes: “They do not always pull it away.”
For Kapadia, the documentary’s ascent is perfect meaning. “Why is an actor who pretends to be more important than the real person?” he asks with a characteristic directness. “It’s crazy. They’ll never be as good. Muhammad Ali is Muhammad Ali. No actor can be Muhammad Ali.”
Trust your gut
When asked what advice he would give to new filmmakers, Kapadia’s philosophy distilles to several basic principles: have a deadline, end what you start, trust your gut and learn from what goes wrong.
“Even if it’s not good, you just have to finish it at some point and then put it out,” he insists. “I know for many people who are brilliant but who never end anything.”
This commitment to complete is implementing his refusal to go through or “fix” past work. “Whatever you do, it’s like you at a certain point in your life and then you are not that person again,” he explains. “As you get older or when you have had children or when you get married or you become divorced or something, you are different. But you won’t make that movie again.”
His recent work, 2073-A hybrid documentary who imagines a dystopian future through today’s journalism-utilizes this philosophy of endurance. “It had a lot of negative energy, no one wanted to finance it,” he recalls. “People were not on the idea. They were like:” Why do you want to do something? It’s so depressing. “I was like,” Well, I have to do it. “
The film became the biggest film at HBO Max with some marketing, reasoned with viewers linked to its urgent warning of authoritarianism and climate collapse.
In the end, for Kapadia, filmmaking comes down to an unmatched faithfulness to their own instincts. “So I look at it is, the only way you can do this is that you don’t worry about what others say. You just have to follow your gut.”
In an industry that is increasingly run by algorithms and market research, Kapadia’s connection is located to a more intuitive, personal strategy as both a creative principle and a silent form of resistance. He works quietly, follows his instincts, and then – when the time is right – the work can speak for himself.
