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SENNA documents the life and death of Brazilian motor-racing champion, Ayrton Senna. The career of this spiritual and competitive man took him all around the globe, but he never forgot where he came from.
Director: Asif Kapadia
Share this film. Give others the chance to be inspired by SENNA and learn from the story.
Consider donating to Instituto Ayrton Senna, a charity Senna set up himself to provide quality public education for children in Brazil.
Go to Grand Prix History to learn much more about the history and formation of Formula One.
Learn more about how to make a career in Formula One. Job in F1 offers advice and tips.
Encourage and practice healthy competition. There are numerous resources available to help teach you how you can get ahead and follow your passions without setting others back.
“The Senna-Prost rivalry was also about an opposition of two different philosophies of life, the spiritual and the cerebral. Prost was so cerebral that he was nicknamed, The Professor. Senna, however, was a spiritual man, functioning intuitively, by gut-reaction.”
New York Times review of SENNA, featuring director Asif Kapadia, who had never directed a sports documentary before.
“The challenge was to be stupid enough or brave enough to not shoot anything,” said filmmaker Asif Kapadia.
An extraordinarily complex character, Senna makes for riveting viewing, made all the more bracing for Kapadia’s bold decision to create the film entirely from archive footage. Retelling the story in the present tense, SENNA works as a drama as much as a documentary.
Listen to our playlist with music from the film on Spotify.
“Just because I have faith in God, it doesn’t mean that I’m immune. It doesn’t mean that I’m immortal.” – Ayrton Senna, 1989
GO ALL THE WAY
“If you’re not gonna go all the way, why go at all?”
What does Director Asif Kapadia make of Senna’s determination? What does he hope we take away from his story?
“That Senna is special; a genius in the car. And more importantly, what he stands for as a man. That his ideals are good ideals. He fights corruption, he cares about the people, and yet he did that in a tough world and a tough sport. Senna is a hero.”
Controversy is never far away in the sport of Formula One. ESPN looks back on 10 incidents that have made the headlines for the wrong reasons, starting with the death of Senna in 1994.
Here’s a helpful article that reveals the shadowy side of Formula One.
According to the BBC, Susie Wolff could become the next female driver to compete in an F1 Grand Prix. The last woman was Italian Lella Lombardi in 1976.
“Now the mystery has been laid wide open, the life of Ayrton Senna da Silva — who raced without his surname — displayed in full, in detail.”
Read more from ESPN.
An interesting look at how competition affects children. Many believe that competition builds character and produces excellent, but there’s also a case to be made against competition.
"Art and passion... YOU COULDN'T SCRIPT A MORE SATISFYING TALE!"
Time Out New York
"A- ... DAZZLING!"
Entertainment Weekly
"A genius at work!"
Art Forum
