MY BEST: George Best – the man behind the legend
Followed by a discussion with Calum Best, Angie Best, Phil Hughes and director Luigi Maria Perotti
World Premier
Dir. Luigi Maria Perotti | 2017 | 82 min | Italy/UK
“I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered”
So wrote George Best, one of the greatest football players. Handsome, talented and utterly cheeky, he became the Fifth Beatle, the footballing rock star of the late sixties and early seventies. And, like many rock stars, he died too young, at age 59, a victim of himself.
Calum Best was born in San Jose, California in 1981. Raised on the beaches of Malibu, he was ambivalent to the notion that he was the son of a legend. That all changed when, at 23, he arrived in the UK for the first time and was hit by the full force of his father’s fame.
“We didn’t know each other very well. I came to the UK to learn who my father was, but I didn’t learn it at all. He was an alcoholic. We talked about girls and football but that was it. He never said “I love you”.
Several years have passed since George Best died. Calum, blessed also with good looks and heir to the Best celebrity status, has indulged in many of his famous father’s excesses. He has become more and more uncomfortable with the fact that a surname made famous by a man he knows nothing about has had such an influence on his life. Calum embarks on a journey to discover who his father really was and ask why his father was unable to have a relationship with his only son?
Not a film about football but a study in familial identification, of loss, and questions about celebrity, masculinity and addiction.
Tickets available on-line only. This is a high demand event and will sell-out quickly. Book early.
