Alla Salute / Bottoms Up

Logline - Official Selection at HotDocs Canadian Documentary Festival 2019
Can one be happy despite being gravely ill? A possible recipe for happiness, in a story about food and the fight against cancer.

Short synopsis
“Can one be happy despite being gravely ill?” This is the question that Nick Difino, a famous food performer on tv, is asking himself after he has been diagnosed with a cancer. Nevertheless, Nick doesn’t want to give up to what makes him happy: his job, his beloved ones… and food. Luckily, lifelong friends are on his side: not just common friends but chef and artists from all over Italy. Simone Salvini, Roy Paci, Paola Maugeri… Interchanging their voices to the main character video­tales, these special guests cook Nick’s favorite dishes, trying -­ between a crudaiola pasta and some eggplant parmesan­ - to answer the same question. Besides, as Nick says: “happiness can be found everywhere… it’s better if you find it at the table!”.

LONG SYNOPSIS
Nick is a 48 years old food-performer, he narrates stories to the audience while cooking and listening to the music. The philosophy of his cooking-show rests on a belief that “food is the essential component of the mechanism that drives economy, culture and health”. Health, exactly. In February 2015 Nick was diagnosed with cancer. At that time his career was blooming; his life replete with work, friends and long term plans. From that moment everything was going to change. Can one be happy despite being gravely ill? He posed this question to himself, after being diagnosed with the Non-Hodgkin lymphoma: his disease became a challenge to find his own “recipe for happiness”.
In the beginning, he had difficulties with accepting the advance of the disease and was barely able to work. This caused him a lot of confusion, as well as the therapy itself, and consequently he decided to shift his ground: he started to record himself, trying to give meaning to everything that was happening to him. The desire to survive will lead him to continue his projects, like running a cooking program on the national TV just when he’s in the most acute stage of the disease.
Eventually, he will discover that there are various ways in which one can adapt to a disease; that his body is like an elastic band and that happiness is very often a “personal recipe” and therefore different for every one of us; that one can feel happy even while lying on a hospital bed. It is a recipe that has to do not only with fate, but also with one's own willpower.
The quality of life, time and – of course - food are essential elements on his path to recovery, supported by traditional medicine's invasive, but yet indispensable therapies – like chemotherapy – to which his body initially wasn't responding. With the support of his doctor and friends, who are his special family, he set out on a journey to transform his body and soul, discovering again the value of both Life and Death.
His story – narrated using subjective shots from his video diary – is alternated with the one in which seven nationally acclaimed Chefs and friends – among which Simone Salvini, Roy Paci and DonPasta – portray Nick's struggle since cooking for him during the treatment has got them closely involved. While preparing meals – hooking up to the recipes mentioned in the story - they ponder over subjects as disease, death, happiness, love for life, and – of course – the role of Food.