There are times that cinema can afford to manipulate. It can accelerate them, dilate them, make them go back, even suspend them for a few seconds before the closing credits.
Then there is the time of illness.
That, unfortunately, knows no editing.
It starts from this distance Tutti o niente, a 2026 Italian short film written by Giovanni B. Algieri and directed by Giovanni B. Algieri and Jonathan Elia, presented on 10 September at the Spazio Incontri of the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido, as part of the activities of the Venice Production Bridge during the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. A project that talks about breast cancer, prevention and therapeutic innovation, but above all chooses to talk about what often remains out of the frame: the path that separates the existence of a cure from the concrete possibility of receiving it.
Because a therapy may have been discovered, approved, even celebrated by science. But for those who wait for it, one thing matters above all: when it will arrive.
From the language of bureaucracy to that of feelings
All or None was born as part of the We Breast initiative - New therapeutic frontiers in breast cancer, a project that brings together institutions, the scientific community, patient associations and protagonists of the treatment process, with the aim of reflecting on access to therapies and the disparities that still exist.
And time is one of the invisible protagonists of the short film.
According to the latest edition of the EFPIA Patients W.A.I.T. Indicator, relating to medicines approved between 2021 and 2024 and with data updated to 5 January 2026, in the European Union an average of 597 days elapse between the authorization and the availability of a new medicine for patients. In Italy the average is 441 days.
Numbers. And therefore, at least apparently, not very cinematic material.
Yet Algieri said during the Venetian presentation that he had identified the film's main challenge right here: «The challenge, in cinema, is always how to tell something». To arrive at the screenplay she carried out extensive research and listened to the stories of numerous women for about a year, continually seeking a balance between the bureaucratic dimension and that of feelings. Some of the people who had entrusted him with their experience, he recalled, didn't have time to see the project make it to the screen.
And it is perhaps here that All or None finds its need: to transform an administrative delay into something that once again has a face, a body, a fear, a hope.
Violante Placido: «Doing politics is a mission»
The cast includes Violante Placido, Donatella Finocchiaro and Filippo Librando, with the extraordinary participation of William Baldwin. Paolo Mauro and Carmine Alfano complete the cast.
During the Venetian meeting Violante Placido focused above all on the political dimension of history and on the responsibility of those who hold a public role.
Her character allowed her to question the distance that sometimes separates institutional declarations from the concrete reality of people. A problem can appear huge but abstract until you look at it from afar. However, it is enough to enter someone's life for it to suddenly take on a different weight.
"I'm not saying it's easy to be a politician, but it's a mission", observed Placido, underlining how those who deal with issues that directly affect people's lives should "be fully active every day".
It is one of the most interesting passages of the meeting, because it shifts the discussion from medicine to responsibility.
In fact, a cure does not really exist just because research has made it possible. It exists when the system manages to get it to the person who needs it.
Donatella Finocchiaro and the memory of her mother
If Placido takes All or None to the political terrain, Donatella Finocchiaro instead takes the story into a more intimate area.
The actress explained that she found the deepest inspiration for her character in her personal experience. Her mother died in 2008 due to cancer and Finocchiaro remained by her side during the years of her illness, going through hospitals, treatments and waiting with her.
“The biggest inspiration was my mother,” he said.
There is then another point of view that the film tries to intercept: that of those who remain close to the sick person.
Because the disease has a curious and terrible geometry. It affects a body, but rarely only a life. Around there are children, companions, parents, friends. People who wait for an answer together with the patient, look for a possibility and end up learning the vocabulary of diagnoses and therapies without ever having wanted to know it.
Finocchiaro recounts this very experience: not only the pain of those who fight against the disease, but also that of those who accompany them.
Filippo Librando: «It's nice when different experiences come together»
It was Filippo Librando who brought the discussion back to the collective dimension of the project.
«It's nice when different experiences come together», observed the actor during the presentation, recalling the work done on the character and the discussions that took place during the production. The experience of the short film, he added, also led him to reflect on the importance of attention and prevention.
A simple phrase, but perfectly consistent with a project that arises from the meeting of different worlds: cinema, medicine, institutions, research and associations.
Not to turn the film into a lesson, but to remember that behind words like prevention, accessibility and therapeutic innovation there are always people.
William Baldwin and a project that looks beyond Italy
Alongside the Italian performers, William Baldwin appears, the international presence of the short film.
His participation contributes to broadening the horizon of a story born in Calabria but built around a problem that does not belong only to one territory: access to treatment and the need for scientific innovation not to remain confined to laboratories or administrative documents.
All or None thus tries to bring together different perspectives without losing sight of its centre: the person.
A short film shot entirely in Calabria
The film was shot entirely in Corigliano-Rossano, involving a crew of around 35 professionals, over half of whom belonged to Calabrian workers. The locations used include Piazza Salotto, the Liceo Classico G. Colosimo, the Collina del Gelso di Rossano and other places in the urban and coastal area.
The project involves Imagine APS, Summeet and Baluma Productions, with the support of the Calabria Film Commission.
Calabria thus becomes something more than a simple location: it is the place from which a story begins that is destined to deal with a national and international issue.
In fact, breast cancer remains the most frequently diagnosed neoplasm in women in Italy. According to the most recent official data, a total of 53,686 new diagnoses of breast cancer were estimated in 2024, 53,065 in women and 621 in men.
But All or None doesn't want to let the numbers have the final say.
When a cure exists but you still have to wait for it
The title has something definitive.
All or None.
Almost an either/or.
Yet the meaning of the project lies precisely in the attempt to eliminate that alternative. Because in the face of the right to health there should be no lucky patients and less fortunate patients, fast territories and slow territories, possibilities available for some and still distant for others.
The question posed by the film is not just about how quickly scientific research proceeds.
It's about how quickly we are able to follow it.
Because there are expectations that are part of life and others that should not be part of it.
And when it comes to a cure, a day is never just a day.
