It was 30 years ago this weekend that Eric Cantona struck an audacious volley from the edge of the penalty area to win the 1996 FA Cup final. For his team, Manchester United, it meant triumph over their fiercest rivals Liverpool and an unprecedented second league and cup double. But for Cantona himself, it capped one of the most remarkable comeback stories in the history of the Premier League – one that has now been turned into a feature film set to take Cannes by storm.

Cantona is directed by duo David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas, the only British directors to be part of the prestigious film festival’s official selection this year. With cinematic flair, it paints a portrait of one of football’s most singular personalities through the lens of his five turbulent and triumphant seasons in Manchester. We are treated to his sublime goals and trademark philosophical quotes, as well as flashbacks to his tempestuous early career in France, in which he berated the national team manager as “incompetent”, faced suspension from his club Marseille and even quit the sport altogether for a time.

But the main drama hinges on the most notorious incident of Cantona’s career, when he lost control after being sent off during a game at Crystal Palace and proceeded to launch a flying kick at a jeering Palace fan. Cantona narrowly escaped jail for the assault, was handed an eight-month ban by the FA and was on the verge of retiring from football (again).

“Eric’s mythology is built around that kick,” says Tryhorn, who says it took more than six months of negotiations with the Premier League in order for them to licence the footage, something that has never been granted before. “Obviously, he was a cult hero at United, but I think without that kick and the subsequent comeback, he wouldn’t be the iconic figure he is today.”

Using archival footage and new interviews, Tryhorn and Nicholas explore how United manager Alex Ferguson convinced Cantona not just to stay in the game but to produce two more outstanding seasons for the club.

“We wanted to make something a bit more cinematic,” says Tryhorn, whose film has been four years in the making. “I think sports films these days can be a little bit formulaic and paint-by-numbers.”

Hence why there are no league table graphics and soaring strings in this documentary. Instead, we get a brooding electronic soundtrack by Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll and long, lingering shots of Cantona flinging paint on to a canvas among the olive groves of his native southern France. Cantona assisted the film by providing never-before-seen footage of himself as a child – sat in a high chair, marvelling at a dead rabbit and playing with a toy gun which he aims directly at the camera. All of it was shot beautifully by his father on 8mm film.

We also get to hear from a small cast of people including Ferguson, teammate David Beckham and, of course, the man himself.

“No other footballer thinks or talks like Eric,” says Tryhorn, who made it a priority to interview Cantona in French as well as English. “We knew he could be prone to veering into cliche a little bit in English. You’re only ever going to get genuine authenticity, I think, in someone’s native language.”

Nicholas and Tryhorn have worked together on previous football documentaries such as 2021’s Pelé, 2022’s The Figo Affair and the forthcoming Netflix documentary Untold UK: Vinnie Jones. What makes Cantona different from those, says Tryhorn, is that they viewed it more as a love story between Ferguson and Cantona. “Eric puts Fergie to the test on a couple of occasions, enormously so after [the kick], but Fergie forgives him, they get back together and Eric repays him with this masterpiece season at the end of it.”

Cantona, with his thick monobrow and upturned collar, stood out from the moment he arrived in what Nicholas calls the “meat and potatoes world” of English football in the early 90s. Tryhorn and Nicholas were not quite teenagers at the time and they both remember his impact in rock-star terms. “It was like Bob Dylan in Don’t Look Back,” says Nicholas. “That scene when Dylan arrives in Liverpool and local kids are banging on the car window while he’s sat smoking in his leather jacket and shades. An unknowable, ungraspable character, who is just so magnetic.”

You’re left marvelling at a man of contradiction. A player who desired freedom yet chose to work in a field that requires strict discipline. A footballer who could conjure up a beautifully deft assist, yet also stamp violently on an opposition player. A man who described the aftermath of his banning in philosophical terms (“I was watching my own death”) yet even now, aged 59, admits he has no regrets: “I should have kicked him even harder, because he deserved it.”

To the film-makers’ relief Cantona – who had no final say over the finished film, unlike so many celebrity documentaries these days – has seen the movie and enjoyed it. That certainly makes the directors’ lives easier as they prepare to promote it in Cannes. Neither of them have been to the festival before.

“It’s exciting and quite surreal for us,” says Tryhorn. “And also quite funny that in a really auteur-driven year, there’s these two weird sports documentary guys that nobody has heard of. But we’re unbelievably proud that Cannes has selected the film. It does validate all the work and effort.”