In Western society the theme of death has increasingly become a taboo subject.

In our continuous race we live as if we were immortal.We simply don’t think of death because it scares us. Until death arrives at home, through a parent, a relative or a terminally ill friend who asks us the fateful question: “Am I dying?”. A question to which we have neither the courage nor the tools to respond. The testimonies of NDEs (Near Death Experiences) can become an important psychological support during this difficult moment, both for those who are dying and for their loved ones. They can represent, as Anna, a nurse interviewed in my documentary, says, “the symbol of a therapy“, to preserve the dignity of those who are leaving and not leave him or her alone before the anguish of the unknown.

The Nde are today studied by doctors and scientists and for their incidence, epidemiology and clinical characteristics, can no longer be dismissed as sporadic events to be relegated in the field of psychiatry or parapsychology. If we also exclude the mystical nature of these experiences, they open an interesting window on our mind, on its infinite possibilities, no longer investigable only with a merely physical and mechanistic approach. Approach that ended up bringing science to completely disinterest in the patient’s spirit, treating him or her like a physical body, which, when dying, is forgotten in hospitals, subjected to disproportionate treatments, discarded when no longer treatable or interesting for research.

Some of these special witnesses opened the door to their home and in front of an ordinary café they told me about their extraordinary experiences that I took in video and collected in my documentary. Overwhelmed by the accumulation of our banal daily gestures we end up trivializing even conversations and thoughts. Through the simple ritual of coffee that is usually offered to a guest, I wanted to communicate the message that banal and extraordinary things can always coexist in a person’s life. That we are made of simple gestures but also of a mind of infinite possibilities. I made a physical journey, by car and train through Italy to visit these people and listen to their stories, but also and above all I made a deeply emotional journey.