Asif Kapadia

Asif Kapadia(born 1972) is a British filmmaker. He directed several award-winning films, including The Sheep Thief (1997), winner of the 2nd Prize Cinéfondation for Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival, The Warrior (2001), which won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film 2003 and Senna (2010), winner of the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, the BAFTA Award for Best Editing and the World Cinema Audience Award Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival 2011 and Amy (2015) which has become the highest grossing documentary of all time in the United Kingdom.

Early life

Asif Kapadia was born in 1972 in north London, to a Muslim Indian family. He attended Newport Film School (formerly part of the University of Wales, Newport, now the University of South Wales), achieved a first-class degree (BA Hons) in Film, TV and Photographic Arts from the University of Westminster and an MA (RCA) in Directing for Film and TV at the Royal College of Art.

Career

Kapadia's first feature film, The Warrior, was shot in the Himalayas and the deserts of Rajasthan. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian described The Warrior as possessing "mighty breadth" and "shimmering beauty"; the film was nominated for three BAFTA awards, winning two: the Alexander Korda Award for the outstanding British Film of the Year 2003 and The Carl Foreman Award for Special Achievement by a Director, Screenwriter or Producer in their First Feature. The Warrior also won the Grand Prix at the Dinard Film Festival, the Sutherland Award at the London Film Festival, the Evening Standard British Film Awards for the Most Promising Newcomer and the Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Film.