Rome Film Festival 2025: Kenny Dalglish (dir. Asif Kapadia) | Review
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon Liverpool football club’s iconic anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone blasted out over Rome film festival’s red carpet, celebrating the premiere of Asif Kapadia’s new documentary Kenny Dalglish.
Asif Kapadia, a lifelong Liverpool fan, spoke at the press conference about his lifelong passion for sports – evident from his numerous documentaries on some of the world’s most iconic spoting figures – and in particular his love of ‘the beautiful game’ (aka football). Growing up in a deprived area of London, Kapadia felt an affinity with Liverpool’s working-class spirit, its pride, and its resilience under Thatcher — “It made sense that Liverpool was my team,” he said, “not Chelsea.” This sense of community and solidarity runs through Kenny Dalglish, a film that’s as much about football as it is about the people of Liverpool and the socio-political context of the period.
In keeping with Kapadia’s previous documentaries — Senna, Amy or Diego Maradona — this too is built entirely from archive footage, but this time Kapadia gives Dalglish himself the voice-over. Dalglish is famously private, but Kapadia has managed to break down some of those walls to reveal a humble, self deprecating, family orientated man. As he recounts his extraordinary career — from his early days at Celtic to his time at Liverpool — Dalglish comes across as an endlessly endearing and profoundly kind man who feels as far from the ego-centric celebrity individualist as it is possible to get.
Kapadia explained how he initially intended to make a film solely about Dalglish the player, but realised early on that the man’s story couldn’t be separated from the city, the context, or the tragedy. The film inevitably leads to Heysel and Hillsborough, two disasters that scarred Liverpool and shaped Dalglish’s life. These sequences are handled with enormous care: painful, moving, but never exploitative. Through them, the film becomes less a portrait of a sportsman than of a man defined by compassion and strength — someone who stood beside the victims’ families when the government and press would not.
Kapadia’s filmmaking remains as intuitive as ever — and particularly an incredible job was done by Italian editor Matteo Bini. The use of the archive footage is wonderfully propulsive, always immersive — never cliche. There’s something profoundly generous about the way he frames Dalglish, not as a saint, but as a man who has spent his life deflecting attention toward others — teammates, supporters, family. Although Kenny Dalglish, for me, didn’t quite reach the emotional intensity of Diego or Amy, it is still well worth a watch. This is not tribute not just to Dalglish, but an exploration of a moment in time — to a version of football rooted in solidarity, humility, and heart. And in that sense, it’s a film entirely in tune with its maker’s own worldview: a love letter to the collective, and to the people who keep it alive.
