On the Adamant by Nicolas Philibert
Beautiful and surprising – a masterful meditation on the value of creativity and the dignifying power of art
A subtle, compassionate and humorous film about the humanising power of art by veteran French documentary director Nicolas Philibert.
The Adamant is a one-of-a-kind place: a floating refuge on the River Seine in the heart of Paris that offers day programmes for adults with mental illnesses. Through therapy, education, and culture rooted in music and the arts, the free-spirited facility offers a hopeful vision of what a humanistic approach to mental health care could look like. On board the boat, the intentionally created community treats both the staff and the people receiving care with the same respect and dignity, and their meetings and conversations reveal the camaraderie and collective humanity of a group of people whose similarities far outweigh their differences.
On The Adamant is an understated, gently challenging observational documentary from nonfiction master Nicolas Philibert (To Be and to Have, In the Land of the Deaf) that invites viewers to witness the transformational power of art and community. Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival, the film has screened at major film festivals around the world.
Nicolas Philibert
Award-winning French documentary director Nicolas Philibert co-directed his first feature-length documentary, La voix de son maître – a film in which bosses of large industrial groups talk about power – in 1978 with Gérard Mordillat. His main feature-length documentary work began in the 1990s, with the films created during this period receiving theatrical release in France. In 2001, Philibert achieved major domestic and international success with Être et avoir (To Be and To Have), a documentary about the daily life of a "one-class" school in a small village in Auvergne that won the Prix Louis Delluc in 2002. In recent decades, more than 120 tributes and retrospectives of Philibert’s work have been curated around the world.
