The Year of Anish Kapoor

Alan Yentob sits down with Anish Kapoor and guides viewers through the sculptor's world, moving from quiet studio moments to the logistics of massive public commissions. The film follows Kapoor as he discusses materials, scale, and the technical choices behind his bold forms, while cameras capture sketches, models, and the hands-on labor of fabrication. Interactions are candid but focused, showing how ideas are tested, refined, and sometimes rethought. The documentary keeps its attention on process and presence rather than biography, offering a straightforward portrait of an artist at work without revealing private surprises or unexpected plot twists.

Released in 2009, the documentary was directed by Matthew Springford and features Anish Kapoor with Alan Yentob in a presenting role. It presents extended interviews and studio footage, framed to emphasize routine practice and major projects across that year.

The film highlights Kapoor's reputation for ambitious, large-scale sculpture and the conversations those works provoke. By showing both maquettes and installed pieces, it gives a sense of how his forms enter public life, and how they get written about and debated in art communities and beyond.

Critically, the film focuses on themes of materiality, scale, and the tension between intimate making and public spectacle. It spends time on technical processes like casting and polishing, and on the practical demands of producing work for urban sites, which underscores questions about authorship, collaboration, and the relationship between artist and audience.

As with many art documentaries, theatrical exposure was limited, with distribution typical for a niche documentary, finding audiences through festival screenings and television or specialized platform broadcasts rather than a wide box office run. No major commercial figures are widely reported.