MILAN (ITALPRESS) – A diagnosis of breast cancer can change everything, but it must not mean facing the path alone. This is the message that for ten years has been carrying out “Smiles in Rose”, the initiative born from the experience of women who have lived on their skin the disease and who today choose to transform that lived in support, awareness and hope for other patients. At the IULM Auditorium in Milan, 170 women from the Breast Unit of Humanitas Hospitals from all over Italy met to celebrate this important milestone with the event “Let’s talk with Sorrisi in Rosa: 10 years together”. In these ten years of activity all time to prevention and awareness not to leave nothing alone, “Smile in Rose” has collected powerful testimonies, which have found a synthesis in “I didn’t think it was about me”, a short realized for the occasion by IULM students and projected during the evening.
To explain the origins of this project was one of the co-founders, Cristina Barberis Negra, writer who was diagnosed twice with breast cancer. “I wondered: what do I do for this disease to become something positive? So, from the meeting with Luisa Morniroli, photographer who first thought of this project, and together with the senologists of the Breast Unit of Humanitas, we believed that “Smiles in Rose” was a way to ensure that the other women never felt alone in a situation of diagnosis and then of cure and healing.
We were in twelve, at first, friends and friends of friends; then, thanks to Humanitas Foundation for Research, we managed to make this project become something much more broadened. Today we are 170 women and we witness our experience of rebirth.”
Not to make the other patients feel lonely also passes through photographs depicting the members of “Smiles in Rose”. The shots are displayed in the Breast Unit of the various policies of Humanitas, from Rozzano to Catania. As Cristina Barberis Negra explained, we want to “replenish women with a vision of themselves away from certain stereotypes in black and white or with scars in evidence. They are photos that bring rebirth as an example, so smiled in natural light of women who faced a difficult period, but who then rediscovered themselves.” New shots are at the base of “Dame in rosa”, a real photographic exhibition presented at the IRCS Humanitas San Pio X in Milan: in this case, the protagonists were portrayed among the works of the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, in order to put in dialogue art with a moment of the experience of the disease.
The presence of “Sorrisi in Rosa” in Humanitas structures has had and continues to have a therapeutic role confirmed also by Professor Carmen Criscitiello, Head of Mummy Oncology of IRCCS Humanitas Clinical Institute and Responsible Oncology IRCCS Humanitas San Pio X. The doctor had the opportunity to observe in person the effect that the movement has on patients who for the first time receive a diagnosis of breast cancer. “It is very important the closeness of “Smiles in Rose” because there is the shared experience of women who before you experienced a diagnosis, lived a path,” he said. “This means being able to compare, sharing fears, but also seeing hopes. The focus of “Sorrisi in Rosa” is precisely this, the positive aspect. Knowing that we have a tumor is never a good news, but the way we face it and the possibilities we have can also allow us to be cautiously optimistic and then to face it with a smile.”
A smile that can appear on the lips of patients thanks to the therapies you have today and which are constantly evolving, helping to heal more women or to increase their survival rate.
The ten years of “Sorrisi in Rosa” and especially the stories of those who animate thethe project was synthesized in a short film with the involvement of students and students of the Master’s Degree in Television, Cinema and New Media of the IULM University. “I didn’t think it was about me” he was born to talk about prevention without using the language of fear, but that of care and awareness. Under the guidance of the coordinator Giuseppe Carrieri, Giada Scarfiello, Francesco Sacco and Elena Mascellani have curated their direction, bringing their sensitivity to the screen and addressing the subject with great delicacy.
“We have worked in synergy to focus on prevention, because from here also comes the title of short film,” said Scarfiello. “We often try to stop the disease when the symptoms are already present and when there seems to be too late.
We wanted to give importance to the theme of stopping us a moment before, listening to our body and taking care of ourselves.”
“It was a very formative one”, added the co-regist, Francesco Sacco, “because as directors we are often called to tell stories, but getting into those that do not directly concern us is a little more complex. We had to use a certain sensitivity to enter the tip of feet in the stories we had to tell and we wanted to convey this feeling even through the framing. It was very touching to see the different experiences of life that eventually cross each other in a unique thread.”
An exceptional guest also participated in the screening of the short: Gerry Scotti. The TV host has for years witnessed the historical godfather of “Sorrisi in Rosa” and on stage also brought part of his life, underlining the importance of prevention and research. The evening ended with the award to one of the most famous and beloved faces of the small screen: the rector IULM, Valentina Garavaglia, in fact has brought to Gerry Scotti the Humanitas- Award IULM for its constant commitment to the Communication of Prevention and Research. The conductor thanked and greeted the 170 women of “Smiles in Rose” with a promise: soon they will be his guests to “The Wheel of Fortune”, so as to give further national emphasis to a project that for ten years tries not to leave behind any.
– photo f12/Italpress –
(ITALPRESS).
