Philippe Pozzo Di Borgo at the opening ceremony of the 11th Marrakech International Film Festival, 2011 Picture: AFP
The friendship between Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and his carer Abdel Sellou served as a template for the film “Pretty Best Friends”. Now the businessman has died in Marrakech.
The paraplegic French businessman Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, whose fate is linked to the movie “Pretty Best Friends”, is dead. The Frenchman, who was paralyzed from the neck down after a paragliding accident in 1993, died at the age of 72, the newspaper “Le Parisien” reported. on Friday, referring to the man’s brother.
“It is with great sadness that we have just learned of the death of our friend Philippe Pozzo di Borgo,” wrote filmmakers Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache. “By agreeing to have his story adapted into ‘Bff’, he has changed our lives and the lives of many vulnerable and fragile people.”
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After his accident, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo hired the then 20-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin, Abdel Sellou, who had just been released from prison, as a nurse. In the French tragic comedy from 2011, François Cluzet embodies the businessman, while Omar Sy plays a freshly released from prison and always in a good mood on welfare recipients who takes on the job of carer.
“Forever in our hearts…” Sy wrote after Pozzo di Borgo’s death. Until his accident, he was the managing director of the Pommery champagne house.