A Second Wind

As the descendant of two prominent, wealthy French families and director of Champagne Pommery, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo was not in the habit of asking for help. Then, in 1993, right on the heels of his beloved wife’s diagnosis of a terminal illness, a para gliding accident left him a quadriplegic. He was forty-two years old and unable to do anything - not even feed himself - without the help of another person.

Passing his days hidden behind the high walls of his Paris townhouse, Philippe was totally isolated. His paralysis rendered him unable to reach out to others and seemed to make people unwilling to touch him or acknowledge the reality of his existence. For the first time, he learned what it felt like to be excluded.

The only person who seemed not to be bothered by Philippe’s condition was someone who had been marginalized his entire life: Abdel, the unemployed, uninhibited Algerian immigrant from the outskirts of society who would become Philippe's unlikely caretaker. In between difficulties and jokes, he sustained Philippe’s life for the next ten years.

The true story behind the major motion picture, The Upside, A Second Wind tells the tale of two men who refused to ask for help, and then wound up helping each other.