Una presencia ideal

They are a doctor, resident, nurse, caregiver, orderly, but also beautician, musician, reader... In the hospital, one after another, they take the floor to tell their encounters with the patients and families that have left their mark, the ties subtleties that they have knotted with them, the dilemmas they have had to face. With small brushstrokes they describe their daily life caring for the bodies, without forgetting the souls, of those who are entrusted to them within this unit different from the others. Since it is about palliative care: the sick, here, are not cured, and those who care for them must strive to find not the ideal distance, but the ideal presence at their side. They have this unique vocation: to relieve those who leave, to console those who remain. Dealing with death closely, Eduardo Berti manages, with exemplary sobriety, to say what life is. And it offers, with this vibrant tribute to caregivers, a magnificent portrait of the human condition.