French entrepreneur and aristocrat Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, the paraplegic man who inspired the film Almost Friends, has died in Marrakesh at the age of 72. The newspaper Le Figaro was the first to report on the disappearance.
The true story of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo
Philippe Pozzo di Borgo was born in 1951 into a noble family. In 1993, shortly after the death of his wife, who was suffering from a rare form of cancer, he suffered a paragliding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He decides to narrate his struggle in the book The Guardian Devil, in which he recounts the struggle with his own body, the harrowing memory of his wife, and the incessant imagination of being a useless and finite man. Sensations and memories he fights by every means possible, from social engagement to attachment to the joys of life, aided by his caregiver Abdel Yasmin Sellou, an Algerian who has just been released from prison. A human who one day steps into his “plastered” life and becomes his “devil guardian”. A relationship that wasn’t easy at the beginning, but which later strengthened and was peppered with comic and moving episodes. Over the years, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo became patron of the association “Soulager mais pas tuer”, which fights in particular against euthanasia, and in 2016 also took on the role of testimonial for “UP for Humanness”, dedicated to the professional integration of people with disabilities .
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Almost friends what you need to know about the movie based on a true story
The Movie Almost Friends
And his story inspired directors Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache to create Almost Friends in 2011, a tragic comedy that stars François Cluzet alongside an unforgettable Omar Sy in the role of Abdel Yasmin Sellou. With over 19 million box office admissions, the film was a triumph and became the biggest hit in French cinema, relegating Gérard Oury’s legendary ‘Three Men on the Run’ (1966) to second place. “It is with great sadness that we have just learned of the death of our friend Philippe Pozzo di Borgo,” the directors wrote on Twitter today. “By agreeing to have his story adapted into Intouchables (that’s the French title of the film, ed.), he changed our lives and those of many vulnerable and fragile people.”
