Mino Damato

Ciao Darwin is a variety game show format from Italy sold under licence to several countries, including Romania, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Canada, USA, China and Greece. There are two competing teams of about 50 people each, usually made up of people who fit certain opposing stereotypes. In each game two members of the audience are selected at random, one from each team, indicated by a light in front of them which remains illuminated when all the other team members' lights have gone off. The games involve contestants competing in acts of bravery, style and talent, some of which are designed to humiliate the contestants, especially an assault course which was introduced with the Italian version in 2010, and the Finale which is a water tank game.

Starting from the distance that separates him from asteroid 121019 Minodamato, the narrator embarks on an emotional journey in search of the many lives of his grandfather, Mino Damato: from reporting on some of the most devastating conflicts of the postwar era to the bright lights of 1980s television, and finally to his encounter with an HIV-positive orphan who would change his life forever. As fragments of family, personal and collective memory are pieced together, Mino’s boundless fascination with the cosmos emerges as the thread connecting a life that seems impossible to decipher.