The documentary about a history of overcoming and friendship between Luca and Ricky
After participating in other projects and promoting personal social initiatives, in an isolated way and without more help than his friends, Ricky Rubio set out to create a Foundation to respond his will to help others. This project was maturing while life gave him an extraordinary professional career in the NBA but at the same time, on the other hand, painfully snatched his mother life. She was the victim of a disease such as lung cancer, which he now strives to fight from The Ricky Rubio Foundation in addition to prioritizing attention to children and youth at risk of exclusion.
An extraordinary and inspiring episode told him exactly when to start his Foundation, the day he met Luca de la Vega, a teenager who was diagnosed with T lymphoblastic lymphoma, a very complicated type of cancer, when he was 12 years old. It all started on a bad day in which Luca went to the doctor after having suffered what looked like a contracture in the left shoulder, accompanied by a very strong pain and a series of fainting.
His case shook the Unió Esportiva Mataró of basketball where Luca played. When he left the ICU after weeks of hospitalization, his coach, Luis Escudero, who had been Ricky’s coach at the same age, asked Ricky to visit Luca to encourage him. That’s how their friendship started. In the middle of the painful treatment, before starting the 2018-19 season, Ricky Rubio transferred to Luca the promise to invite him to an NBA game, a proposal that happily ended in the match played by Ricky (Utah’s team) Jazz in front of the New York Knicks on March 20th, 2019. Luca traveled accompanied by his family. It was an unforgettable trip.
Luca project evolution
Luca’s maturity and his will and spirit of improvement prompted Ricky Rubio to turn the experience into a solid and ambitious project of his Foundation, taking him to a new stadium. His plan has been to extend it to three children who will be invited to an NBA game this 2019-20 season. The three children have been chosen in collaboration with the Department of Salut of the Generalitat de Catalunya from among those treated at the children’s oncology center of the Vall d’Hebrón Hospital. The Ricky Rubio Foundation and those responsible for the hospital are also developing a work plan to establish a protocol of activities and follow-up of the beneficiaries of the project throughout the year, apart from preparing the travel of the three to an NBA match. But best of all, Luca has been appointed by Ricky as a mentor and liaison with those who are going to live this incredible adventure by the hand of Ricky under the umbrella of the Luca Project, as Ricky wanted to baptize him in tribute to his strength and sensitivity.
The documentary film
Alex Torres, an expert filmmaker, knew the story and wanted to follow it from his professional vision. He sensed that behind this story, there was a lesson about life, solidarity and friendship between two characters connected by a kind of ungovernable and magical destiny. The result, a documentary of extraordinary narrative strength, hard, sensitive, sincere, real and exciting. The story is as simple as it is attractive, tells how Luca, a fighter in love with basketball and life, receives the unexpected visit of Ricky Rubio, how they connect and the importance of being invited by his friend to a game in New York at a key moment of the disease.
Stronger Together is the title of the film-documentary about Luca’s trip and the friendship with Ricky. It is the result of the personal initiative of Alex Torres, dragging a good part of his colleagues from his production company, Altoestudio, to collaborate in the complex process of filming, production, assembly and preparation for this premiere at the Badalona Filmets Festival 2019.
