Maradona and his 'Hand of God' will be part of the 2022 Oscar Awards [VIDEO]

The figure of Diego Armando Maradona will be present at the Oscar Awards ceremony, hand in hand with the Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, who narrates in the film ‘It was the hand of God’ (‘É stata la mano di Dio’ ), nominated for Best Foreign Film, the impact that the ’10’ Argentinian in his life.

In an autobiographical film, Sorrentino (Naples, 1200), winner of the Oscar in the same category with ‘La Gran Belleza’ in 2014, captures how ‘El Pelusa ‘ and the Napoli of the 27 were key players in his adolescence and, as they say in the film itself, they ‘saved his life’.

And it is that the young Sorrentino, with 17 years old, despite liking skiing, he did not go with his parents to the village of Roccaraso (Italian Abruzzo area) for the weekend – as was customary in the family – to stay and watch, at the Neapolitan San Paolo stadium (currently called the Diego Armando Maradona stadium), the Napoli clash against Empoli.

His father had given him months before on the occasion of his birthday the season ticket in one of the curves.

The next day, together with her brother, she received the news that her parents had died intoxicated by a carbon monoxide leak while watching TV. Soccer and Diego Armando then became the refuge of a young man who, months later, decided to dedicate himself to cinema.

In fact, at his parents’ funeral, his grandfather, a great fan like him of the Argentine star, told him that ‘Maradona had saved his life’, that it was the hand of God that saved his life (‘É stata la mano di Dio’).

The signing from Maradona to Napoli, his first months in a city that immediately welcomed him as an idol and years later turned him into a God, is the common thread of the film, and what for Sorrentino was his ‘salvation’.

“I believe in the semi-divine power of Maradona”, Sorrentino acknowledged during the presentation of the film this summer at the Venice Film Festival about the “Golden Boy”, who has become a deity in Naples.

After jumping the pond and serving as a soldier in Spain, Maradona established himself as a legend football in Italy. His arrival at a humble team in the south of the country caused a change in the city of Naples, where he became the idol of the fans by placing the team among the biggest in Italy.

‘El Diego’ led the Neapolitan team during the seven years he was at the club (1984-1991) and managed to lift the first ‘scudetto’ in the history of Napoli in a year in which they also won the Cup, a double that until at the moment they had only achieved Inter Milan, Juventus Turin and Torino.
In 1990, the club would win the Italian league for the second time in its history, but the most important milestone came in the previous season, the 1988-94, when he lifted the first international title of the Napoli, UEFA Cup.

The Argentine international and world champion was an icon not for the ‘Gli Azurri’ fans and for Sorrentino himself who, from a different point of view, expresses the importance of the Argentine in the city and its inhabitants.

The film, shot in Naples, was released in theaters last 24 November 2021, just one year after the death of the Argentine star (20 November 2020).

Next March 27 will take place in Los Angeles (United States) the 94 th edition of the Oscar Awards, in which the film with Sorrentino’s Maradonian aura can win a golden statuette.