Despite addressing a difficult topic, On the Adamant, a look at the lives of patients with mental disorders at a Parisian day-care centre, is full of humour and playfulness. Radiating genuine warmth, it promotes tolerance and calls on society to accept diversity. Winner of the Golden Bear Award at the 2023 Berlinale.
The Adamant is a unique day-care centre. A floating structure located on the Seine in the heart of Paris, it welcomes adults suffering from mental disorders, offering the kind of care that grounds them in time and space and helps them to recover or keep up their spirits. The team running it tries to resist the deterioration and dehumanisation of psychiatry as best as they can.
Nicolas Philibert's observation over an extended period of time is motivated by a genuine and contagious interest in all that moves within a community. This gentle, enlightening film invites us to join the welcoming microcosm of The Adamant, celebrating diversity and fostering a sense of our common humanity.
"I didn't want to make a film about psychiatry which would lead viewers into an inevitably and eternally sombre world. When you spend time with patients in a place like The Adamant, you find people who seem to be suffering and others who don't, who have found a kind of balance in their lives, who live with their illness, who have managed to control it and accept it. This balance might sometimes seem a bit wild, or unique to say the least, but there are some really educated, incredibly lucid people there, who are often funny too, even when the situation doesn't call for it." (Nicolas Philibert)