John Battsek Interview

JOHN BATTSEK

John Battsek, the English producer of the sparkling new documentary Once in a Lifetime, has just flown in from New York where his film was warmly received at Robert de Niro's Tribeca film Festival. And it's little wonder: over 100 minutes the film chronicles the extraordinary feat that was the creation of a football league - or soccer as it is called throughout - in the US during the 1970s, one which attracted the cream of world football, from Pele to Beckenbauer to Marsh (Rodney).

Battsek is no stranger to successful documentaries, having already been responsible for the Oscar-winning One Day in September, as well as Live Forever. A self-confessed football fan, the idea of making a film about the life and times of the New York Cosmos came through a chance conversation in the Big Apple, and Battsek was immediately hooked. ‘I had a subliminal memory in my head of Cruyff in a Cosmos outfit', he explains. ‘I remembered the Cosmos, and I thought it must have been a pretty amazing moment'. This certainly comes across, as the film doesn't shy away from showing the behind-the-scenes truth of one of America's most unlikely and short-lived sporting love affairs.

The very notion of football/soccer in the US also appealed to him: ‘I've always been intrigued by the fact that the greatest country in the world refuses to embrace what is by far the most popular sport in the world. Once we did a bit of research and discovered these fast-talking characters and how they all contradicted each other, I knew we were on to something.' Three years later, and his work has reached a fruitful climax.

Indeed, the characters are the films highlights: from a gleeful Beckenbauer who fondly remembers his years in NYC, to the existing Cosmos players who were astonished to find themselves playing alongside Pele on sub-standard pitches. The added ingredients of Studio 54, the Son of Sam and a pumping music scene all heighten the occasion, to make a film that is bigger than the sum of his parts.

Once in a Lifetime may only have a short run in the cinemas, but it's one of the year's most entertaining films, which should excite both supporters and non-football fans alike.