Dir. Nicolas Philibert
2023, France, 109 min
French with English subtitles
Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, this affecting, enlightening documentary from nonfiction master Nicolas Philibert (To Be and to Have, In the Land of the Deaf) invites viewers to come aboard the Adamant and witness the transformational power of art and community.
The Adamant is a one-of-a-kind place: a floating refuge on the Seine River in the heart of Paris that offers day programs for adults with mental illnesses. Its attendees come from across the city and are offered care that grounds them in time and space, helping them achieve recovery and stability.
Through a blend of therapy, education, and culture rooted in music and the arts, the Adamant offers a hopeful vision of what a humanistic approach to mental health care could look like. The community on the boat is intentionally created so that both the staff and the people receiving care are treated with the same respect and dignity. Their meetings and conversations reveal the camaraderie and collective humanity of a group of people whose similarities far outweigh their differences.
“There is a gentle and very happy sense of freedom and possibility aboard the Adamant, and there is enormous warmth, sympathy and human curiosity in this film.” – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
“The task of representing mental illness and those afflicted by it can be a precarious tightrope walk for a documentarian, and it’s to Nicolas Philibert’s credit that he mostly avoids tumbling into sensationalism or mawkish sentimentality.” – David Robb, Slant Magazine
