Maradona receives godlike treatment in Cannes film

By James Mackenzie

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Diego Maradona came to Cannes on Tuesday in a film that celebrates one of the most brilliant and wayward players in soccer history in a tone of near religious devotion.

"Maradona by Kusturica" allowed Serbian director Emir Kusturica to indulge his idolization of a sporting legend.

"Nowadays, when popularity is projected through football as a supreme sport on the planet, he is qualified to be a god," Kusturica told a news conference after a screening at the Cannes film festival.

Kusturica, two-times winner of the festival's Palme d'Or award, began making "Maradona" in 2005, when the former World Champion was a bloated shadow of his former self, battling health problems and the effects of years of drug abuse.

"It wasn't particularly difficult to talk about. What is good is that I've survived to talk about it," Maradona said.

Coming after U.S. director James Toback's sympathetic portrait of heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson, the film, showing out of competition, is the second at Cannes to focus on a charismatic but troubled sporting hero.

Maradona, 47, went from the tough Buenos Aires suburb of Villa Fiorito to the pinnacle of his sport in a career culminating in a 1986 World Cup triumph that included two of the most famous goals in soccer history.

His two strikes against England, one punched in with the aid of what he later called "the Hand of God" and another scored after a run through a mesmerized England defence, summed up Maradona's impudence and genius as a player.