Pistorius documentary examines what went wrong with the Blade Runner: Sivell

The rise and fall of South African paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, who shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, is the subject of a new documentary by Vaughan Sivell, who believes the story serves as a parable for the nation post-apartheid.

The filmmaker said the four-part documentary was an attempt to understand what went wrong with the athlete, who was found guilty of culpable homicide.

"There was a concern that I did not have really anything new to say because it has been in news so much already. But during the initial research, it struck me that he was born just a few years after the birth of the rainbow nation. The country and the man had so much in common as in so little had been expected of them but they confounded everyone by what they achieved.

"But if you fast forward in time, the trial basically shows how the dream of the nation and Oscar, both came crashing down in a way that highlighted the poverty, crime and inequalities of the country," Sivell told PTI in a telephonic interview from London.

A documentary filmmaker digging around is not the most welcome thing but Sivell said he ensured that their interpretation did justice to both Reeva's memory and Oscar's life.

"We ensured that this wasn't a frivolous piece of entertainment and really was something that should make people think about what they feel about the whole case, he said.

Three years of research went into making the series, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video on September 6.

Sivell said gaining the trust of the people associated with the case was important.

"One of the judges described it as a tragedy of Shakespearean proportion. As a filmmaker, you try to find the truth in a story, which in this case happens to be a real life tragedy."