Diego Maradona is sure to cause a stir when he turns up next week at the Cannes film festival for a new documentary about his jaw-dropping life by the Oscar-winning maker of “Amy”.
It is only one of a wave of new works about the flawed Argentine football genius that include a just-wrapped Amazon biopic series that follows every step of his dramatic rise and fall.
The poster for Asif Kapadia’s striking documentary “Diego Maradona” also pulls no punches, calling him both hero and a “hustler”.
Yet Maradona will still walk the Cannes red carpet for the man who won plaudits and prizes for his insight into the life and tragic death of singer Amy Winehouse.
Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bono and Iggy Pop will climb the same carpet during the festival, which starts Tuesday, but few if any of them can draw the crowds or the passion as the short man born in a Buenos Aires shantytown.
It is this complex yet unshakable adoration, forged in Maradona’s frequent flirtations with death, that drew Kapadia to his story.
After his acclaimed portrait of the Brazilian Formula One ace Ayrton Senna, who lost his duel with death at 34 as he was leading the San Marino Grand Prix, the filmmaker said he had to steel himself to tackle another sporting hero who lived life on the edge.
