An important film had its US debut at Sundance a mere 48 hours ago. It's a film for Formula One fans past, present and future. It's a film that paints the picture of the “greatest that ever drove” with minutiae detail that rivals a Van Gogh. It's a film where producers Manish Pandey and Asif Kapadia whittled down 15,000 of never-before-seen archival F1 footage into a comfortable 104 minutes, without losing the essence of the legendary Brazilian Ayrton Senna.
In a Formula1Blog post 'Negative Camber' peels back the layers and gives us a deeper understanding of the writing and producing that went into making this epic film. Check out the interview: Q&A With Senna's Manish Pandey and Asif Kapadia
I first heard about "The Senna Movie" from 'Lois Marketing' in her October 2010 post on the LinkedIn group "Friends of Formula 1 Austin Texas." Once I heard about the film, watched the Japanese preview, and read up on its reviews, my immediate thought was "This needs to be screened in Austin during the SXSW Film Festival." I started tweeting Pandey and Kapadia and even posed the same question on the LinkedIn group page and our Facebook page.
After reading the interview my belief is reignited. As Kapadia mentions in his interview with Negative Camber, he wasn't an F1 enthusiast when approached by Pandey to do this film. But they were both able to get to the heart of Senna's story with the aid of 15,000 hours of unseen archival F1 video, and create a story that "somebody who doesn’t like Formula One, or a person who has never heard of Senna, will get the film...". So, someone who wasn't an F1 enthusiast spent the past few years pouring himself into 15,000 of archival footage to tell a story - one that you will probably love because you're already an F1 fan reading this blog - but also a movie that you can take your F1 newbie friend to as well - and they will probably enjoy it? <insert lightbulb moment>
This sounds like a no-brainer to me! Seriously - how can this movie NOT be screened in Austin - the future home of the United States Formula 1 Grand Prix from 2012-2021 (and hopefully beyond)?
Pandey and Kapadia have taken the time to tell a chronological and psychological story, and from everything I've read, they've done it well. I hope F1US realizes the potential of this film for past, present and future US F1 fans.
Have you seen it? When do you think it will come to the American masses? How could this impact the future of F1 in the US?