4 lessons making 'André is an Idiot' taught me about life

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Many people have considered what they would do if they knew they were about to die. For André Ricciardi, an advertising creative director from San Francisco, he planned to spend his last years in front of a camera, creating a documentary he never got to see in its entirety.

Ricciardi died in 2023, a few years after he had been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. His funny, imaginative spirit lives on in “André Is An Idiot,” a comedy documentary that offers an intimate portrait of Ricciardi’s life before and after his diagnosis.

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Tony Benna, an old friend and colleague of Ricciardi, directed the film at the request of Ricciardi. Last year, he took the film to the Sundance Film Festival, the largest festival for independent films in the US, where it won two awards. The film arrives in UK cinemas on February 6th, sharing Ricciardi’s story with a wider audience and reminding the world to get their colonoscopies and other important health checks.

Benna sat down with Shortlist to discuss four lessons he learned about living life to the fullest documentary about his ailing friend.

1. Advocate for your health

“André Is An Idiot” began when Ricciardi reached out to Benna after five years of no contact with an idea for a project.

“He goes, ‘Guess what? I've got a stage four cancer, and I want to make a comedy documentary with you about this,’” Benna recalled of their Zoom call.

Stills from the documentary Andre Is An Idiot

Benna said he was at first taken aback and wasn’t sure how to handle such a project.

“Cancer is not funny, but André is,” Benna said. “I've never met anyone as brilliant and hilarious as André. I figured if anyone could make a subject as dark as cancer funny or light-hearted in any way, it would be André.”

According to Benna, Ricciardi came up with the film’s title, “André Is An Idiot,” because he wanted to tell the audience to take their health seriously.

“He wanted to say, ‘I'm not making fun of cancer. I'm making fun of my own mistake. And don't be an idiot like I was. Please get your colonoscopy. Please advocate for your health. Don't brush those things aside,’” Benna said.

As highlighted in “André Is An Idiot,” colon cancer is more common over the age of 50. In England, Wales and Scotland, the NHS invites people aged between 50 and 74 to get free colonoscopy screening tests every two years. If you show symptoms at any age, such as blood in your stool or unexplained loss of weight, you can speak to your GP and ask for the test.

2. It’s OK to talk about death

Talking about death is often a topic people avoid until they can’t anymore. Benna said his relationship with death had changed after interviewing oncologists and nurses for the film. They offered the perspective that humans should talk about and even celebrate death.

“The more that you consider your mortality, the more you talk about it — like André allows us to do — the more you joke about it even, it allows us to realise we're not going to be here forever,” Benna said.

“Death is a part of life, and it's okay.”

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Benna added that accepting death as a part of life reminds humans to “live large” while you are living.

“A lot of us get caught up in a cycle of living that ignores death. I think if we could practice what they call ‘Memento Mori’ a bit more often, where we consider our death daily, that we live a richer life.”

3. Vulnerability is your strength

At the beginning of “André Is An Idiot,” Ricciardi tries to hide his struggles with his illness from his family and friends with humour.

“It's a great communication tool to talk about pain in your life, but sometimes humour can also be a mask for pretending to be vulnerable by putting it all out there, but not really, internally, being vulnerable,” Benna said.

As the film continues, those walls start to come down. During a deep discussion about his fears with his best friend, Lee Einhorn, Ricciardi admits he is more afraid of hurting his loved ones than dying.

“The real vulnerability that André came to is ‘It's okay if I go, but I don't want to hurt my kids. I don't want to hurt my wife, but it's inevitable. And I can't stop this. And humour is not going to fix it,’” Benna said.

“He had to come to that realisation that he had to be truly vulnerable, be truly honest about what's going on.”

After witnessing this, Benna believes that vulnerability is actually a strength rather than a weakness.

“What André's journey was during this process was learning how to be vulnerable in areas that he was actually afraid of,” Benna said.

“The lesson there is that we don't have to wait until something bad in our life happens to create change in ourselves.”

4. Live life unapologetically

Benna’s final lesson he learned from Ricciardi came from his friend’s attitude in life.

“André was so unapologetically himself, and he had been his entire life,” Benna said.

“How do I live being less afraid of what people think about me and being just who I am unapologetically, like André, because that's truly living.”

To Benna, living life your way is the best legacy you could leave behind after your death.

“I would say that the key advice in the film that I get from André, and I hope audiences do, is you don't have to follow convention in life. You don't have to follow convention in death. You can be you, you can do things your way, and it's okay.”

André Is An Idiot is in UK cinemas from 6th February, 2026