How Roger Federer opened up to Asif Kapadia on camera
Federer: Twelve Final Days, an 88-minute feature-length documentary (Amazon Prime Video), follows Federer through those final days from drafting his retirement announcement, counting down to its posting on social media, along with reactions from his family, including parents, friends, colleagues and media, up to his final farewell. The film by Academy Award-winning director Asif Kapadia and co-director Joe Sabia features archival footage (including Federer as a ball boy), interviews and appearances by his arch rivals and friends, including Nadal, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic. London-based Kapadia, known for his in-depth documentaries on personalities with dramatic life stories (Senna, Amy), spoke to Lounge about crafting this intimate swansong.
Edited excerpts from an interview: I would say the aim of all the films I have done is to always be true to the character. Diego Maradona is about Maradona and the chaos and the craziness is him. Amy is what her life was like.
Senna is an action movie, like him. Federer is quite different. He’s a calmer, more mature person, so the film is true to him.
He retires in his own particular way and so it’s obviously going to have a different energy because he’s not a racing driver and he isn’t Amy Winehouse, and he definitely isn’t someone from a favela in Argentina who then lived in Naples. My job as a director isn’t to cut and paste the style onto every story. It has to come from the character.
I wasn’t present when this was being filmed. I saw the material later. They put it together and then someone said, this has been created, but we need an experienced director to turn it into a movie.
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