Prime Video and Studio 99 have announced a new documentary on the world’s number one snooker player. More below:
From the companies that brought you Beckham and (perhaps less relevantly) Your Christmas Or Mine comes a new documentary on one of the UK’s most accomplished sporting stars – and it’s got a whole load of top doc talent behind the scenes, too.
Ronnie O’Sullivan hasn’t had the most harmonious relationship with the media over the years, but his attempt to win the Snooker World Championship for a record 7th time in 2021 apparently proved to good an opportunity to pass up. Apparently, he gave the filmmakers an unprecedented level of access to himself and his friends and family – for snooker fans, this sounds like a bit of a scoop.
The film will debut with a special premier screening on 21st November, featuring a Q&A with O’Sullivan and executive producer David Beckham (nope, never heard of him either) streamed live to cinemas across the UK. The documentary then drops onto Prime Video on the 23rd November before a limited cinema release on the 24th.
This is Ronnie O’Sullivan. Look at him, all relaxed. There’ll be lots of that sort of thing in the documentary, we reckon. (Credit: Prime Video)
Director Sam Blair, who also made the excellent Maradonna ’86, said, “Throughout the making of this film, Ronnie allowed his charisma, complexities and contradictions appear naturally—he was profoundly himself, raw and unfiltered, and that made the often awkward and complicated situation of making a film simple for me. My job, as I explained to Ronnie, was to do justice to his story and his experience, and to do that we had to find ways for the audience to grasp the full bandwidth of his experience—from rapture to meltdown. I see the film as a collaboration with Ronnie to achieve that aim, and I think its power is that we get to see that full range unfold in the present tense. It is a film about a great artist at work, but also about a person struggling with themselves and the factors in their life that are out of their control.”
Ronnie O’Sullivan said, “My highs and lows have been well-documented by the media but I felt like now was the right time to do something more definitive – something that I can look back and reflect on as I contemplate retirement. Going into my 7th World Championship I wasn’t sure I had it in me but allowing the cameras in gave me perspective and was a strange catharsis.”
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