The Life and Trials of Oscar Pistorius, a new four-part 30 for 30 film from director Daniel Gordon, will be coming to ESPN+ this fall.
- An international hero who had inspired millions with his determination and refusal to be denied the chance he felt he deserved—suddenly in the midst of a murder investigation. And the circus that ensued around the tragedy made just as many headlines as his initial rise to glory.
- That is the tale of Oscar Pistorius, a saga told definitively in director Daniel Gordon’s four-part “30 for 30” film The Life and Trials of Oscar Pistorius.
- Beginning with the confusing, stunning turn of events in the wee hours of February 14th, 2013, when Pistorius’s girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot in his home in Pretoria, South Africa, the film flashes back to chronicle Pistorius’s incredible rise from a toddler who had both his undeveloped legs amputated to overnight teenage phenomenon at the 2004 Athens Paralympics.
- Shattering records and convention, the “Blade Runner” then went on a quest to compete against able-bodied athletes at the Olympics, one that ultimately concluded triumphantly at the 2013 London Games.
- But less than a year later, he’d be in a South African courtroom, accused of murdering Steenkamp after an argument.
- While every twist and turn of the case riveted the world, the backdrop made it all the more fascinating: a young man of privilege born into a newly post-Apartheid South Africa, representing the hope of a new way forward for his country, only to be upended by an incident of gun violence that has long plagued the nation’s society.
- Featuring interviews with more than a dozen of the figures closest to the story, the film covers the entire case, the heartrending trial, the media frenzy that surrounded it all, and ultimately the conviction that leaves him in jail to this day.
- The Life and Trials of Oscar Pistorius will premiere this fall with all four parts streaming on ESPN+ that same day.