Christopher Reeve documentary on Showmax get four Emmy nods

South African Robert Ford produced Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which has just been nominated for four Emmys: Directing, Writing, Editing and Music Composition. 

Streaming on Showmax from Friday, 25 July, Super/Man has already won more than 30 awards, including Best Documentary at the 2025 BAFTAs, a Producers Guild of America Award and six Critics' Choice Documentary Awards.

The story of Christopher Reeve is an astonishing rise from unknown actor to iconic movie star, and his definitive portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman set the benchmark for the superhero cinematic universes that dominate cinema today. Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel in four Superman films and played dozens of other roles that displayed his talent and range as an actor, before being injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down.

After becoming a quadriplegic, he became a charismatic leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, as well as a passionate advocate for disability rights and care - all while continuing his career in cinema in front of and behind the camera and dedicating himself to his beloved family.

Super/Man includes never-before-seen intimate home movies and an extraordinary trove of personal archive material, as well as the first extended interviews ever filmed with Reeve's three children about their father, and interviews with the A-list Hollywood actors who were Reeve's colleagues and friends.

Super/Man has a 98% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it, “a powerful story of human endurance… One of the aspects that makes Super/Man so satisfying is that, for a biographical film in which tragedy and loss play such a central part, it’s rich in evidence of hope and kindness, gratitude and the resilience of the human spirit.”

Watch the trailer, which has nearly 8m views

Ford spent the first 18 years of his life in Wellington, matriculating from Hugenote Hoërskool before moving to England. “I’m half British, so some of my family were in the UK, and I moved here to start my career. I wish I had known more about the South African film industry at that stage; I only discovered later that SA has such a vibrant film culture.”

Over the last 25 years, Ford worked in film in various roles, from assistant editor to sound assistant to camera operator, making his name as a production manager and then as a documentary producer.

In 2019, his career changed gear after he worked as a field producer on Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which is still one of IMDb’s highest-rated series of all time. This was followed by producing credits on  two Emmy winners: The Deepest Breath, about world-record-setting free diver Alessia Zecchini, and Rising Phoenix, about the Paralympics, as well as Alex Gibney’s Citizen K, which was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award; Final Account, which was nominated for two Critics Choice Documentary Awards; and the Emmy-nominated Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In, about the legendary Manchester United coach.

“I’ve done a lot of archive-based documentaries about people from recent history,” says Ford. “And quite a lot of them were sports documentaries. I don’t know why that happened; I’m not really a big sport person but I was just drawn to interesting stories in the world of sport.” 

He’d worked with Super/Man directors Peter Ettedgui and Ian Bonhôte on Rising Phoenix, coming back to South Africa to film Paralympics double-Gold medalist Ntando Mahlangu. That documentary had opened all of their eyes to the struggle for disability rights - a key aspect of Reeve’s legacy.

“When I heard they were developing a documentary about Christopher Reeve, I immediately jumped at it because Chris was such an icon. I was always fascinated by his life, just because it’s such a dramatic story, with such highs and such lows. And then when I found out how much archive footage there is, that the family filmed everything and kept everything and had this huge treasure trove of archive, it felt like a no brainer to make this film.”

That treasure trove of archive became the biggest challenge. “It’s a complex story that takes place over decades,” he says. “We had to license the archive from so many different places, and then it was challenging to edit, because we had so much footage, hundreds of hours. The story could have gone in so many directions, so there were lots of difficult decisions in the edit. Letting go of the scenes you really love is hard; it's hard killing your babies. There were wonderful scenes we could have included but we just didn't have the running time.”

Having now made a couple of documentaries about disability, Ford believes it’s not only “important that those stories are heard and not marginalised” but that disabled talent is included in the filmmaking process. “It’s important to include their perspective and point of view.”

On Super/Man, their team included several disabled crew and consultants. “They were involved in every aspect of the film’s R&D. Their insights into living with paralysis proved particularly invaluable, helping us to understand not just the everyday challenges for a disabled person but also the ethics and (often controversial) politics around the idea of ‘cure’ which Chris championed.”

Ford is currently filming his directorial debut, a feature documentary set in the US that he describes as a “quirky, unusual nature documentary.”  This will be the first project produced by his own production company, Radius Films.

Rising Phoenix is the only time he’s filmed in South Africa but he still has family here and visited last year with his partner. “I'd love to film in South Africa again,” he says. “South Africa has great filmmakers and crew, and the filmmaking infrastructure there is really brilliant.”

He’s looking forward to the people he grew up with being able to see his film on Showmax. “It’s a universal story,” he says. “Chris went out of his way to help others. He was a kind and empathetic person even before his accident, who did a lot for others, but that accelerated hugely after his fall, even while he was confronting unimaginable adversity. Behind the onscreen superhero was a real-life hero.”

Credits: DC Studios presents in association with HBO Documentary Films and CNN Films in association with Words+Pictures, a Passion Pictures and Misfits Entertainment production in association with Jenco Films. Directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui; editor, Otto Burnham; composer, Ilan Eshkeri; produced by Lizzie Gillett, Robert Ford, Ian Bonhôte; director of photography, Brett Wiley; executive producers, Connor Schell, Libby Geist, Marie Margolius, Mark Meatto, Andrew Ruhemann, David Moulton, Andee Ryder, Daniel Kilroy; written by Peter Ettedgui; co-written by Ian Bonhôte and Otto Burnham.