On the Adaman Boat, a documentary about a floating day-care center in Paris for adults with mental disorders, won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear award yesterday.
Director Nicolas Philiber expressed his deep impact on the jury’s decision to award the festival’s first prize to a documentary instead of a fictional work.
He said, “This documentary can be considered a cinema in itself, and it affects me deeply.”
The film was filmed over a period of three years, and revolves around the interaction of patients in the care center in the “Adamant Boat” moored on the bank of the Seine.
Philliper added on the red carpet after his film won: “Psychological patients are always stigmatized … and they are always viewed through the lens of violence. I wanted to overturn this stereotype and show how human they are.” “I hope this will help awaken the community’s awareness,” he added.
And the director of the feature documentary, in which the boundaries between caregivers and patients are blurred, considered that “the craziest people are not who they think they are.” Patients appear in the film as they take part in therapeutic or art workshops, but they also forget their illnesses to build a shared life, for example helping with budgetary issues.
Documentaries are regularly included in the most important international film competitions, but they rarely win prizes. Last year, the Venice Film Festival awarded the Golden Lion to a documentary about the opioid crisis in the United States, entitled “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” directed by Laura Poitras.
“The mission of this festival is to go beyond the ordinary,” said American actress Kristen Stewart, 32, who became the youngest president of the jury in the history of the Berlinale. She added, before presenting the award, that “the unobtrusive standards set by the industry and the academy about what a movie is does not match” and the winning tape.
The Frenchman Philippe Garrel, 74, also won the Silver Bear Award for Best Director for the movie “Le Grand Chariot”, a work similar to an artistic will that the director filmed with his children. Also, the jury, which also included former Golden Bear award-winning directors Radu Judy and Carla Simon, and French-Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, awarded the eight-year-old Spanish girl Sofia Otera the award for best acting performance for her role in the movie “20000 Species of Peas”.
And the emerging actress, with tears in her eyes like adults, received her award, which is a reward offered by the Berlin Festival for the best acting performance.
Away from the competition, this 73rd edition allowed the Berlin Film Festival to return to normal. After two smaller editions due to the pandemic restrictions, the 11-day festival was held in full force this year, attracting some of the most famous names in the world of cinema, such as actresses Cate Blanchett and Helen Mirn, and director Steven Spielberg, who was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear.
Also among the celebrities attending the festival this year is actor Sean Penn, who came to present a documentary about his tours of Ukraine during the war.
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It took years to shoot the winning documentary, which revolves around the interaction of patients in the care center in the “Adamant Boat” moored on the bank of the Seine.
