Asif Kapadia

Asif Kapadia0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:04

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:41

My castaway this week is the director Asif Kapardia. As a filmmaker, he is as unpredictable as he is passionate. He broke through with an Indian epic based on a Japanese folktale, followed that up with a dark love story set in the Arctic. A trilogy of award-winning documentaries followed. The first, about the life and death of motor racing legend Ayrton Senna, saw him credited with reinventing the form. His portrait of Amy Winehouse won him an Oscar, and his take on the Argentinian football star Diego Maradona was recently released to critical acclaim. Despite the apparently disparate nature of his work, there is a common thread, an ongoing fascination with outsiders and the cultures around them. It took root when he was growing up in London's multicultural Stoke Newington. He says, The work is an excuse to spend time in different cultures. Each film is almost like a degree. I just feel like I want to learn. It's a gift to have the ability to create a world where you can tell stories from around the world. Asif Kapardia, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you, Lauren. Such a privilege to be on. So tell us then about this idea of world cinema. Your films, The Sheep Thief, The Warrior, and your documentary Diego Maradona, they're not in English. How would you characterize your style?

Presenter1:52

I've grown up having a kind of Indian background, but being a Londoner, feeling very European and going on a 73 bus to the West End, it was just normal being surrounded by people who were from different parts of the world, ate different food. So when I got into movies, that was my opportunity to travel and understand people and understand cultures and then try to tell stories.

Presenter2:15

And one of the most innovative aspects of your documentaries is that we as the audience only hear the interviews over the footage. We don't see them. Why not? It's a good question. I mean, part of my interest in filmmaking is always to slightly break the rules and to try, if I can, to be different or original. So my first feature, The Warrior, it was a British movie. I made a film in India, not in English with no British actors. So when Senna came along, I just thought there's a way of telling this story which is from the point of view of it and Senna, but I can't interview him. So how do we do that? And the idea of using his voice to tell his own life story. And if you don't know his story, you only realise at the ending what happened to him. So that idea of somehow making it more cinematic, making it for the big screen, because a lot of this stuff was seen on TV for free. So it's a big job to give yourself. I mean, a huge amount of footage that you've got to go through. Hundreds of hours of reels, of TV, family films, news footage. How easy is it to spot the shot?

Presenter3:13

I mean, what I like about the process is that you take your time. I've always liked just being able to sit with footage and sit with a character and study their face and study their eyes. I can remember seeing footage of Senna driving around the Imola racetrack and it happened to be his final lap, the one just before he crashes. And I used to show people it. Sometimes people just cry, even if they didn't know what was going to happen. So every now and again, you see something, you see something in Senna's eyes or you see something in Amy's face and you just go, that's going to be in the movie. I don't know how, I don't know why, but there's something going on here that's affecting me emotionally. You're going to share your music with us now, of course. So should we dive straight in with your first? Okay, we're starting with Amy Winehouse, Tears Dry on My Own. This one's for Amy, an amazing artist, an incredibly beautiful, wonderful, creative person who I was lucky enough to meet in a perverse way by making this film. I didn't meet her when she was alive. I never saw her. But I've got to know all of the people around her and they've all become mates. And so this is Amy Winehouse, Tears Dry on Their Own.

Speaker 34:16

I knew I had him at my match But every moment we get snatched

Asif Kapadia4:21

I don't know why I got so attacked.

Asif Kapadia4:24

It's my response to real cheap Yet I own nothing to me But to walk away, I have no capacity

Speaker 34:26

Get up.

Speaker 34:33

Uh

Asif Kapadia4:33

Wow.

Speaker 34:33

Walks away, the sun goes down. He takes the day, but I'm grown. And in your baby, in this blue shade, my tears dry on their own.

Presenter4:48

Amy Winehouse and Tears Dry on their own Asuka Pardia. Such a great track to start with. It's a beautiful one. It's the one that I like to play when I'm playing music because it's kind of one of her cheerful songs. And that was part of a trilogy of documentaries, Amy, Senna, and Diego Maradona. You've described them as a trilogy about child geniuses and fame. Why did you want to explore that? And really amazing, charismatic people, I guess, who just have a presence and are special and move people. And I only want to make stories about people if I feel like I can try and find a way to somehow make them more understandable and sympathetic or empathetic. So hopefully we get to a place where the audience can feel for these characters. It's really easy to make fun of people. It's really easy to attack people. It's much more difficult to make difficult and challenging people sympathetic. But it was an accidental trilogy. Senna was going to be a one-off. And somehow, during the process of making it, I became quite obsessed with Senna because I thought he was amazing. Everything he stood for was the right thing. When Amy came along, it was because I've made so many international films. It was the first project that made me want to be back in North London and tell a story about our city. Everything I love about London, the creativity, a kind of North London Jewish girl singing jazz and being into hip-hop, but also all of things I don't like about society and the attacking of someone really young who's obviously suffering and is not well. So it felt like a moment of truth and everyone thought this is not right. You're just going to exploit her again. And part of the challenge was to win over the trust of people who knew her. And their challenge to me was.

Presenter6:22

You've got to reveal the real Amy. And I guess that's always the challenge when you're telling the story of another's life. I mean, how do you deal with it when people close to the subject disagree with your take? Mitch Winehouse, for example, wasn't happy with the Amy film.

Presenter6:36

Honestly, pretty much everyone who's seen it says the film's true and honest, even if they don't say it publicly. There was one person who came out who didn't like it. But the way I make the films using archive, I'm not putting those words in your mouth. What you did, you did what you did, you said what you said. Don't trust me, listen to Amy. She wrote it in her own song. So my job was just to do my best version of what I felt was the truth. And how did the people close to Senna, his family, and Maradona and his friends and family react to the films about them? Senna's family, the screening for Senna, I remember we showed it to them in Cannes. It was the most emotional screening that we've ever had. It was really heavy. They cried a lot because often you're showing people footage they've never seen before of a loved one. But they loved the film. It was really heavy and difficult for them, but it went down really well. But it's not easy dealing with what happens. Maradona, I've shown it to his family, his ex-wife, his girlfriends, his children, his trainer. You can see where I'm going here. Building up to everyone himself. Everyone, but the big man himself who refused to see it, who was too busy, wasn't feeling great, didn't come to Cannes. But that's just so Diego Maradona. You make a film about him, and the one person who's alive couldn't care less more about the movie.

Asif Kapadia7:25

Yeah.

Asif Kapadia7:34

Building up towards the mindset.

Asif Kapadia7:37

Yeah.

Asif Kapadia7:39

It's too busy.

Presenter7:49

He'll see it at some point. We'll hear about it on Instagram. That's the only way I'll find out what's going on. It's time to go with the music. Second disc today, Asif, what is it? So the second disc is kind of dedicated to my brother and my three sisters. I'm the youngest of five kids. We grew up listening to music and particularly disco. And so this is chic and good times.

Speaker 28:10

It's all the good children.

Speaker 28:15

Leave your chance behind.

Speaker 28:19

Be up on the top.

Speaker 28:28

These are the good times.

Speaker 28:32

Are you staying alive?

Presenter8:40

Chic and good times. So if you were making a film about your life, as if Copardia, where do you think you would start?

Presenter8:47

Oh wow. I think it would start in Hackney. First few years of my life, we were in Stamford Hill. Then we went off for this crazy adventure. My dad decided to start again. Having come over from India in 1966 and lived in Yorkshire and came down to London. He had this idea in 1980 to go to America. And having now been to India many times, the idea of coming from a village in Gujarat and coming to England, you just think, you know, how brave is that? And to just get settled, to have five kids and then to decide, let's do it again and let's go and be millionaires and be in America. And it didn't work. So we came back and lived all above a shop in Norfold Road in Stone Newminton. And so that period of life, there were kind of good times, but also it was sadly kind of the breakup of the family. And all the elder siblings sort of separated off.

Asif Kapadia9:11

Yeah.

Presenter9:35

And what was the impact of that fracture on you at that time? I think we all just matured a bit quickly. And actually, my mum suffered from schizophrenia. And she was a wonderful person, looked after loads of people, loving, but you know, the pressure would build up. And, you know, you could see when she was getting tired, things would get worse. And so there was always this slight management, my sisters particularly trying to look after her rather than the parents looking after us. And I guess for me, in many ways, my three sisters really kind of brought me up. They helped with my homework. They were the people who kind of ran the house, really.

Asif Kapadia9:53

Mm-hmm.

Asif Kapadia10:00

Hmm.

Presenter10:10

So the dynamics were all changing. I mean, when your mum was ill, what was that day-to-day like for you? I mean, looking back now, I think it was what was going on in the house went on in the house. And when you went off to school and you went out of the house, you never talked about it. No one knew. I didn't really bring people home. Generally, you know, you had this double life at home, speaking in Urudu to my mum, eating Indian food and then going out and being a Londoner and trying to figure out who you are, where you fit in, how British are you really, all of these kind of complex things. There wasn't necessarily a lot of stuff that we talked about that went on at home. It's a kind of classic Indian Muslim background of keeping it all quiet.

Presenter10:50

Do you think that some of this is only becoming clear to you now that you are older, there's some distance on it, and also you have children that are the age that you were then?

Presenter10:59

I think it's partly getting to the age where you have midlife crises. It's partly being asked to do something like this, doing the work that I've done, making a film about Amy and looking at her issues and realising I'm telling the story of someone who's suffering from some form of mental illness. And actually, I want to empathise for this character. Why are we laughing at this person? She needs help. Somewhere subconsciously, I know there were people that would have laughed at someone like my mum and the things that she went through as I was growing up and we were covering it up. But actually, now people are more open to talk about mental illness. And same with Maradona. He had issues. Weirdly enough, my sisters have gone into that type of world as well, of trying to help people or heal people. And we haven't really spoken much about it. That's the truth. It's partly by being asked to do this that I'm contacted my sisters and said, let's talk, you know, what music did we listen to when we were young? What did we do? Because we've all gone off in separate directions, sadly.

Asif Kapadia11:43

Door Uh

Presenter11:54

Do you think it was just too hard to talk about? I think it was hard to talk about. And we we've not had that kind of family where we would all meet up at Christmas or on birthdays. We've we've fractured and you realize now is the time to try and make those connections again. Did you get support from outside of the family?

Presenter12:11

When you were young.

Presenter12:13

Mm-persi?

Presenter12:15

Honest truth is while my GCSEs were going on, at the same time my mum was in a hospital, you know, in a mental hospital, and having electric shock treatments. And I never spoke to anyone. You didn't go to your teachers or talk to your friends about any of that stuff. You know, it was an interesting thing because it made me realise I really couldn't care less about exams. I don't want to be judged on one day if there's something going on at home. So I made a pact to myself saying I'm never going to sit in an exam ever again. And I never have.

Presenter12:41

Let's turn to the music, Asif. This is your third track. Tell me about this one. This is Kabi Kabi, which is one of the songs that my mum used to listen to. She was a machinist. She worked really hard all hours of the day. She loved music. She loved Mukesh and Latamangesha. And when she was in the cellar, she would be singing away and you could hear her. So I would often fall asleep. You know, I'd hear the machine go and I'd hear her singing. So this is Kabi Kabi.

Asif Kapadia13:07

Kabhi kabhimer ti me khayana tahe.

Presenter13:12

Yeah.

Presenter13:14

Uh

Speaker 213:14

Yeah.

Speaker 213:25

He just a poet

Asif Kapadia13:27

Banaya Hemi Devil.

Presenter13:41

Latiman Geshko and Mokesh with Kubby Cubby Mara Dilmen Asif Kapadia. People might be surprised to hear that you weren't a film nerd when you were growing up.

Presenter13:51

Yeah.

Asif Kapadia13:51

Uh

Speaker 213:51

How come

Asif Kapadia13:52

Yeah.

Presenter13:52

I didn't have the patience to sit down and sit still and watch the movies. Also, I didn't grow up in a family that really, I didn't get taken to see Star Wars. I do remember going to see Greece, but I was always like, I wanted to run around. I used to go to the park. Whenever everyone watched the movie, I'd leave the house, really. And I was of that age when I'd get on the bike and then we'd go to Stonington Common, play football, play cricket. I mean, I saw the obvious kind of Amitabhacham films, but they were long and I wasn't a lover of movies young.

Asif Kapadia14:11

Yeah.

Presenter14:20

Tell me about school. You went to Homerton House School in Hackney. Did anything there capture your imagination? Homerton was, I mean, you have to have been there to know what it was like. It was an incredibly rough, tough place. I had to look at some pictures online. Massive. It looked absolutely enough. We had 2,000 boys. Two schools had merged in the 70s and 80s. So just before we went there, there were kids from all over the world and probably seven white kids in the class. I had no idea we were minorities until I went through further education and I realized, oh, right, not everyone's from my background. Not everyone looks like me. Also, this is Hackney back in the day. People who live there now were not coming to Hackney then. It was rough. It was character building, I think, is what you call it. Just surviving the trip to get to school and getting home was a big thing. We're talking about Thatcher time. So, you know, care in the community, which meant shutting down mental hospitals. We had to get past all of these people who were obviously mentally unstable just to get to school. You know, it wasn't unusual to have to pass someone with a hammer who was swinging it at you while you were trying to go to school. Oh, my God.

Asif Kapadia14:36

The tower block

Presenter15:24

Bad things happened while we were at Homerton. Great things happened. I had great teachers, teachers who kind of made us grow up, I guess. I meet lots of people who've done very well since then, and we all talk about, you know, if it wasn't for Homerton, we may not be where we are now because something happened. And I was only 11, you know, 11 to 16 dealing with that. Never came home and told my parents, never discussed it with my sisters what was going on at school. You come home, you switch into your other persona when you're at home, and then when you leave the house, you're back into like, okay, survival. So, what was it that happened, this change, you know, in the process of going to Homerton and surviving those things? Can you part of it was just kind of becoming mentally strong. Either you're tough or you have a big mouth. I wasn't tough, but I had a mouth. And I'm also the youngest of five kids, so I realized that you have to somehow use your wits to survive. I'll never forget it.

Asif Kapadia15:57

I think it was.

Presenter16:12

It sounds like it was quite intense at home on the way to school, then when you got to school. Where were the spots of kind of joy and happiness in your life? So I suppose what happened is after school, I just got lucky. Somebody asked me for a favour and said, look, could you cover for me? I'm meant to be working on a short film. All you've got to do is carry some boxes around. And for me, that was the escape. Working on a student film, I was used for, it was part of a team, part of a family in a way. Running away with the circus is how I would describe it. The camera woman on that film said, do you want to work on my graduation film? It's in Cornwall. I've never really been, I've never been to Cornwall. I was terrified by silence. Growing up in Stone Newminton, you know, you go to sleep with sirens going on outside your window. And literally one film just kept leading to another, leading to another. And then I started to make short films. And that was it. That was the escape. It's time to hear some more music. There might be a couple of sirens in this, actually. Tell us about it. Why have you chosen it? So I guess during the days of Homerton, that's when kind of hip-hop really became a thing. And this is the kind of era of wearing my Waltman and listening to Public Enemy. It takes a nation and millions to hold us back was the album that year.

Speaker 217:18

Rather than systems!

Presenter17:20

And for me the best track was Rebels Out of Ports.

Speaker 217:22

Brothers and sisters!

Speaker 217:24

I don't know what this world is coming to.

Speaker 217:29

Yes, the rhythm's a rebel. Without applause, I'm lowering my level. The hard rhymer, will you never been in? You want styling? You know it's time to get D. The enemy telling you to hear it. They praise the music, just time to play the lyrics. Some say no to the albums, the show. Bum rush the sound. I made a year ago. I guess you know, you guess I'm just a radical. Not on sabbatical, yes, to make it critical. The only part of your body, chipping party too.

Presenter17:58

Public Enemy and Rebel Without a Pause. So Asif Kupardia, you studied film at Newport Film School and then you went to the University of Westminster and there your graduation film Indian Tales won a prize and was shown on TV. How did you make it?

Presenter18:12

It was based on Indian superstitions, Indian folktales that my mum would have told me. And I ended up with a list of 15 of these funny things. If you drink milk and eat fish together, you'll get a skin disease. Or if you hiccup, it's because someone's thinking of you in a nice way. But if you bite your tongue, someone's small at you behind your back. And I was like, I just started collecting them. And I brought them into the class. And I had a brilliant tutor called Tony Grazzoni. He was the first person that really gave me the confidence to write. And Tony thought they were great. And I ended up writing a script and that became Indian Tales. So it's about a black guy, Asian girl. He's cheating on her. So she gets revenge. But she gets revenge by buying him a fillet of fish and a milkshake.

Asif Kapadia18:31

Yeah.

Asif Kapadia18:52

Okay.

Presenter18:53

You seem stupid, but actually, it somehow made sense in the film. My parents had gone off to Hajj to pilgrimage, and when they were away, I took over the house. The film crew moved in. We shot this movie in the house. Nobody knew. There's no handy the film was on TV, and my parents were watching it going, that's our TV. That's our living room. But that's what you had to do.

Asif Kapadia18:58

Do you know?

Presenter19:12

So to what extent did you realize that you had talent at that point? You must have had a sense of the visual quite early because you're successful from the beginning. I suppose partly it was having an eye. I wanted to be a cinematographer originally, but I've got really bad eyesight. I thought, if this isn't going to work, I'm quite blind. Directing became like the backup option, and it was public enemy music I was really into, but also Spike Lee's films. What he would say about you've got to be the producer, you've got to be the writer, you've got to direct your own stories. I really wanted to be in control of what the story is going to be about or who it's going to be about, and always to cast someone that may be Asian, but I have to say, I never really wanted to do films about people being forced into marriage or the cliches that are grow up with the corner shop guy or the minicab driver. I want to tell these stories about people who happen to be black or Asian, but actually, their stories are just normal everyday stories that are amazing. Your first job after university was in TV rather than film. How did that suit you? So, Indian Tales, the film that Paul Day and I made at university, then won a prize in America. And then we got offered jobs as graduates. And it was this TV program called Shift, which was on in the middle of the night. It was youth TV with an F. Oh, yeah. It was great for a short time, but I realized.

Asif Kapadia20:17

Oh yeah.

Presenter20:20

I'm not very good at it.

Presenter20:22

I can't do it. Some people can just churn them out. I'm really bad. I get obsessed with trying to make it good. It's time for your next piece of music. What's it gonna be? So, as I was working on this show with Paul and with various friends, and there was a particular mate of mine, Peramo, we spent a year having a company car and expenses. So it was amazing. And Peramo had this idea, he wanted to make a film about the prodigy. So we ended up for that summer, we basically followed them around to festivals. And so this next track is Prodigy No Good.

Asif Kapadia20:38

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 220:57

You're no good for me, I don't need nobody. Don't need no one, that's no good for me. You're no good for me, I don't need nobody. Don't need no one, that's no good for me. You're no good for me, I don't need nobody.

Speaker 221:14

No one

Presenter21:25

Asif Capardia, blasting that out of your company car, imagine. So, Asif, 1995 sounds like it was a pivotal year for you. You quit your job to take on an MA at the Royal College of Art. The reason to do an MA is to test yourself. I was at art college, I was surrounded by incredible artists. One of the people I met there was Victoria Harwood, saw her on the Thursday, she became my wife. But we worked together as students. We met in 1995, but we got to go when we graduated. So it became the opportunity to try to develop myself as a filmmaker and to be original. And I realized what makes me different is I am Asian, but I'm a European, so I want to somehow find a way to merge the two to tell stories. And so that's what I did with my graduation film, The Sheep Thief. I ended up shooting it with street kids in India. And that film went off and won a prize at Cannes and really was the beginning of my kind of career, I guess. 1995 was also the first time that you visited India. You were 23, I think. Yeah, it was really interesting. I took my mum, and much as I loved going to India, it was so crazy. I thought, this is great. I look like everyone around me, but I could be standing still. Standing still, they look at me going, you're not from here because I don't even stand still, right? And I realised I'm not actually Indian. When I was traveling, working on films and around the UK, I realised I didn't feel necessarily always very British. And it really made it clear to me who I am. Wherever I go in the world, it's London that is home. So being there with my mum was interesting to spend time with her. And I saw enough to realize India is visually stunning. And the excuse to spend time in India was to make movies.

Asif Kapadia22:33

Mm-hmm.

Presenter23:02

I mean you obviously like to push yourself. The sheep thief, as you say, shot in Rajasthan in Hindi, which I don't think you speak that well. Is that right? If you see the film, you can tell I don't speak it very well. I've become better having spent more time there. My family spoke Urdu, so I understand Urdu and Gujarati, and I speak Urdu and Gujarati. But where we were in Rajasthan, the dialect that everyone was speaking, I struggled with at the time. But I learnt.

Asif Kapadia23:13

Set more time there.

Asif Kapadia23:25

Okay.

Presenter23:26

And as you mentioned, you were using street children as actors, so non-professional actors and kids. And then far north, you know, that was made in the Arctic. You and the crew lived on a Russian icebreaker. What was that like? I also kind of like old school filmmaking, so there were no visual effects. We were out there for real. We were shooting in Svalbard. It's the northernmost town in the world. It was tough. It was amazing. It was kind of an obsession. There were polar bears out there. It was very dangerous, let's be honest. My wife was pregnant at the time and she was the art director. In one way, it was the last version of that type of filmmaking for me. I made a few short films like that where I was pushing crew. We did the warrior in India in the desert, and it was 50 degrees in the desert. We were in the Himalayas. The challenge for me was to make these stories, which were, I suppose, quite art-house films, and finding an audience for them at the time was really tricky. So we worked so hard, and then you make a film and no one sees it. And that's when the opportunity came along after that to make Senna. And weirdly enough, that led to this switch of my career to documentaries, because I thought, if I'm going to put all this effort in, I do want the films to be seen.

Presenter24:29

Let's have some more music. Tell us about your next disc, what we're gonna hear.

Presenter24:33

I was first shown the opening to this movie when I was a student. A tutor showed it to me and said, look, you need to watch the opening of this movie to understand sound. And I love this film and I love Westerns. And it's a song that I used to play while Victoria and I were scouting in Dungeoness while making our own Western while at Royal College of Art. And the track is by Ennio Morricone and it's the man with the harmonica.

Presenter25:36

From the soundtrack to the film Once Upon a Time in the West that was Enno Morrigone's Man with a Harmonica.

Presenter25:42

Asif Capardia, you've described yourself as feeling like an outsider sometimes. How did you feel then the day that you, the boy who we met earlier on the number seventy three bus, was waiting to see whether you'd won an Oscar for your film Amy?

Presenter25:57

Oh wow. It was an amazing feeling. If you win, you've got 45 seconds. And when you do get up on stage, the theatre is massive. There are thousands of people. And straight in front of you, there's a clock counting down. So I was just staring at 44, 43. It was great. It was perverse. It was exhausting. And I have to say, I really love the film Senna that we made, the same team essentially made. Senna didn't win anything like that. And I love it just as much. So it doesn't really change you when you win something.

Asif Kapadia26:09

Hunting down.

Asif Kapadia26:12

Wait.

Presenter26:29

I mean, you've been winning awards from the very beginning of your career. How do you feel you fit into the film industry establishment? I don't necessarily feel in the centre of the business, but I've been around long enough. I've made enough movies. I know people now to feel like I'm a part of the UK industry. And how do you think you fit in?

Presenter26:48

That's a really interesting question.

Presenter26:51

I don't know if you look at it now, even now, how many brown guys from Hackney are up there doing what I do? Maybe there are producers. You know, you see a lot of people present in front of the camera who are Asian. We hear about now. They don't necessarily get paid the same amount as everyone else. But to have a company, to be making movies, to be writing, directing, winning these awards or doing well at the box office, there aren't many still. So I'm trying to just do my thing. When you go further and further in business, you realize everyone's come from public school. They all know each other. Their parents were in a business. They're all connected. I didn't come from that background. So I still feel psychologically like I'm slightly different and slightly on the outside, quite happy to be on the outside. It is who I am.

Presenter27:32

It struck me revisiting your films and particularly the documentaries, in some way they're all about an individual who is kind of at the mercy of a money-making machine. And knowing a little bit about your slight ambivalence about the fit between the industry aspect of film and the artistic aspect of film. What do you feel about that? Do you know, I didn't connect the dots with my films, but it was a tutor at the Royal College of Art who looked at my short films and looked at everything I was writing and said, there's obviously a theme where you are always telling the story of about this outsider character or someone who's not part of the establishment. And her words did stick with me and I realise that continues on. Evidently the films are about other people, but they're also about me. You didn't get into the National Film School. You failed to get in there several times. I hear that you like to remind them about it when you're in there. Every time I go there and I teach, I bring that up. Because I don't know, you know, this is all part of it. I can just remember I would apply to every film school and university and I could never get in anywhere. And why? I got turned down by everywhere. I don't know. I was really that bad at application forms. The only reason I got into Newport Film School was because someone else dropped out. I was on the standby list. And in those days, I was of the generation that could only study because I got a grant. My family would never have been able to pay for me to go to university.

Asif Kapadia28:19

Every time

Asif Kapadia28:29

And why?

Asif Kapadia28:39

Yeah.

Presenter28:48

It's time for your seventh disc. Films are special because they essentially encompass all of the other art forms. And one of the most beautiful things about filmmaking is the moment when you take images and you put music on. And this next track is by Antonio Pinto, and it's a track that I used in Senna when Aiton Senna's just crashed. And what I subsequently learnt is that Antonio wrote this piece of music just after his own mother had died. And so this is Antonio Pinto Amorte.

Presenter29:57

Antonio Pinto's amorti. Asif Copardia You mentioned earlier that when you were young, you know, your family didn't talk about things, didn't talk about the issues at home. I wonder about you and your family, your home life. Are you better at that?

Presenter30:11

Trying. My wife would say probably not. Um but it's interesting when you've got kids'cause you're trying to kind of bring up your kids in a certain way and to be maybe different to the way your parents were sometimes with you or your family was. But it's not easy. It's it's not easy. It's much easier when I'm dealing with someone else's issues than when dealing with my own.

Presenter30:29

What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers who might be listening to this and are just at the beginning of their journeys?

Presenter30:34

I think for filmmakers, if you want to be a director, I think the idea is to figure out what is it that makes you different and what makes you unique. And you are special and you have stories that are great stories. Don't copy what other people are doing. Find a way to tell your own stories. They may not literally be about you living in your house with your parents, but it's something that you're into that makes you different. And to practice and to finish what you start, don't quit. That's really important.

Presenter31:04

One more disc to go as if Copardia. What's it gonna be and why? So Art School, the Royal College of Art, that particular period of late nineties, early two thousands. So the next track, I think you have to have a radio head track if you're gonna put together there's an island disc. And this is just

Asif Kapadia31:30

Can't get the stink out.

Asif Kapadia31:35

He's been hanging round for days.

Asif Kapadia31:40

Comes like a comet

Asif Kapadia31:43

Second year.

Speaker 331:44

You banach your friends

Speaker 231:48

Uh

Asif Kapadia31:48

May I get to you?

Speaker 231:51

Yeah.

Asif Kapadia31:51

And did you have a deal?

Presenter31:54

Radiohead and just. It's time for you to go to the island then Asif Kapadia what you're going to do when you arrive.

Presenter32:05

Try and find the highest point to see how big this place is. A nice wide shot, and then try and figure out where I'm gonna survive.

Asif Kapadia32:10

Yeah.

Presenter32:14

Spoken like a true director. You'll have the books, the Bible, and the complete works of Shakespeare to keep you company. You can also take a book of your own. What would you like?

Presenter32:22

I think the book that I go back to and I've always found quite inspirational was the autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X. You know, he's a street guy who's a hustler who comes from a violent world who somehow goes through life and changes and becomes a man of peace. And it's an amazing story. An incredible journey of a man. You can also have a luxury item to help you pass the time. This is a tricky one. My kids and my wife would say our Japanese toilet.

Presenter32:51

Oh, because I went to Japan. I'm like, these are great. I want one. And we got one. No, I'm going to have to ask for more detail. I mean, it does everything. I mean, how much could a toilet do, obviously? You'd be surprised. I did think also for my mental health, a regular Pilates class would be the best thing, really. But I don't think I'm going to say that either. The luxury I'm going to ask for is a really good Polaroid camera with unlimited film from the 70s, which was really rich and saturated. And I think if I could just spend time on the island taking Polaroid photos and putting them under my armpit for them to dry and pin them up somewhere from a tree, I think that might keep me amused and happy.

Asif Kapadia32:55

Uh

Asif Kapadia32:59

I mean, how much could a toilet do, obviously?

Presenter33:29

Sounds perfect. Finally, if you had to choose just one track to save, which would it be? I think I'm gonna go with a Morricone for the kind of epic nature. I think it would work well on a desert island and somehow trying to make a Western while I'm out there.

Presenter33:45

Asif Kapadia, thank you very much for sharing your desert island discs with us. Thank you, Laura.

Presenter34:00

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Asif. I'm sure he'll take some wonderful Polaroids while he's cast away on his island. As I'm sure you know, the Desert Island Disc's back catalogue boasts many film directors, including Steve McQueen, Ken Loach and Lindsay Anderson. In twenty fifteen, Kirsty Young spoke to Gorinda Charter, director of Bend It Like Beckham.

Asif Kapadia34:18

I grew up in a shop. You know, my parents, after a while, bought their own business, and I grew up like many Asian kids in a shop.

Asif Kapadia34:25

It was a time at the rise of the National Front, and there was this kind of threat of violence everywhere. And I remember once my mum was in the shop, and these boys came in and sort of bought all this beer, you know, they put all this beer in bags, and then they sort of walked out. And she said, Well, hold on, you haven't paid. And they all turned around and sort of mooned her, you know, which was quite shocking. And I actually put that scene into Bargie on the Beach, actually, my first film, you know, with the boys mooning the women. But there were other shopkeepers we knew who'd been attacked, you know, particularly in Lewisham. I remember there was an uncle of ours who had a shop and he'd been knifed and everything. And eventually, my dad did get attacked, which was when we gave up the whole shop business. At that time, the National Front was on the rise, and England was quite an ugly place, late 70s. And for someone like me, I was sort of searching for who I was and what I was. And on this one occasion, there was the first Rock Against Racism March. And so I wanted to go on this march, but my dad sort of really wouldn't let me and said, No, you're going to get because it was the time of the SPG as well. And so he really thought that I would get beaten up. And in the end, I said, Okay, I won't go. I'm going to go shopping instead.

Asif Kapadia35:34

So I went off and of course I did go on the march but I was too scared to actually go on the march and so I went straight to Victoria Park where the concert was after and I remember getting to the concert and of course there was nobody there and as I was about to leave I sort of heard this sort of chanting, this kind of sound and as I looked down the street I just saw thousands and thousands and thousands of people walking towards the park carrying banners and everyone was joined together in sort of both anger and celebration. It was that combination that spoke to me and that that was the moment when I became political.

Speaker 336:18

And did it give you a faith in in a place that you weren't sure you were connected to?

Presenter36:23

Did it make you feel British?

Asif Kapadia36:24

Right, absolutely. It made me feel like I was part of this world. And having grown up with a kind of us and them attitude, which had come from my parents' generation, a door had been opened to say we are born here, we're raised here, this is who we are, and we're all going to stand together.

Presenter36:43

You spoke with a smile on your face, and indeed a hearty laugh, about your your parents thinking, you know, you can become a doctor and marry a a nice handsome Sikh boy. What did your school teachers expect from you? What advice did they give you about your future?

Asif Kapadia36:56

We had our usual sort of careers teacher advice, and I had thought at that point I was going to do development studies, third world, sort of economics and politics. And when I saw my careers teacher, she sort of looked at me and said, Well, I think your ambitions are too high, and I really think you should do a secretarial course. And I remember the sort of injustice that I felt. I was so furious that I actually now think I have to credit her really for everything that I've gone on to do because I just really needed to prove that woman wrong, which I did.

Asif Kapadia37:28

Gorinda Chada speaking to Kirstie in twenty

Presenter37:30

That program and over two thousand other editions are available to listen to on BBC Sounds. Next time, I'm casting away an expert in one of our obsessions, sleep. My guest will be Professor Russell Foster. Do join us then.

Speaker 338:07

Hello, I'm Asma Meer. Before you listen to your podcast, I'd like to remind you about the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal, which may be as familiar to you as carols and Christmas crackers. Over its long history, Radio 4 listeners have supported St Martin in the Fields to provide practical help and support to thousands of people so that they can leave homelessness behind.

Speaker 338:30

Many people for many reasons find themselves a long way from home. Their journey home can start anytime and anywhere. It can start with a cup of tea and someone listening. It can start with a deposit for a room in a house. Please support the BBC Radio 4 Christmas appeal with St Martin in the Fields by donating online on the Radio 4 website. Whether you're a long-standing donor or this is your first year, thank you. Home starts here.