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‘Nasty’ Serves Up Punchy Portrait of ’70s Tennis Bad Boy Ilie Nastase Who Helped Define Era
Director Tudor Giurgiu's documentary about the talented, eccentric and controversial former champ has a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better metaphor for the free-wheeling, fast-living Năstase, a “wild child,” “rock star” and “insolent, elegant, angry, whimsical bon vivant” who makes a fitting subject for Giurgiu’s documentary, which has a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival on May 23. Using a treasure trove of footage sourced from tennis tournaments, federations, public broadcasters and private archives around the globe, Giurgiu colorfully re-creates the spirit of the time, taking audiences from the courts of Wimbledon and Roland Garros to clubs like Studio 54. In 2017, Năstase sparked an angry backlash after making racist comments about then-pregnant Serena Williams’ unborn child; he was later sanctioned after a profanity-laced tirade he delivered as captain of the Romanian national team during a showdown with Great Britain.
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