The cinema of Nicholas Philibert

Documentary: a cinematographic genre which in recent decades has reached an excellent level of quality. Also in this case the strengthening of the distribution chain has broadened the market and led many companies to produce works which, to garner interest on TV, they have also collected awards at major international festivals. The first was Michael Moore with Fahrenheit 9/11 capable of winning the Cannes festival in 2004, but with him many other directors to name just a few such as the Cambodian Rithy Panh, the American Frederick Wiseman, the Chilean Carmen Castillo have created works capable of combining technical quality with a depth of thematic research. Last but not least, the Italian Gianfranco Rosi, also awarded at the Venice Film Festival in 2013 with Sacro GRA, an investigation into the various humanity that gathers on the asphalt banks of the Roman ring road.

After Cannes and Venice, in 2023 Berlin also awarded a documentary work such as On Adamant – Where the impossible becomes possible by Nicholas Philibert, also out in Italian cinemas thanks also to the Berlin recognition. An author who has been appreciated by critics for many decades since 1992 with In the country of the deaf (an attentive and participatory story on the world of sensory diversity available free of charge online), then with Essere e have of 2002 , I work on the events of a school and the rural environment of a small town in the French Massif Central and In every moment of 2020 on the experience of a nursing school where you learn the difficult art of care.

Philibert's practice is complex which, in order to be able to represent reality without pretenses (the cinema of reality is another definition of the documentary genre), leads him to live with his protagonists in the same environment as them for months before filming without ever giving in to the temptation of the "hidden camera".
In On the Adamant Philibert once again deals with an extreme social garrison. The Adamant is a large boat moored on the Seine, where there is a therapeutic center for people suffering from mental illnesses. An island that stubbornly resists in a world that only thinks about economic efficiency. Philibert resumes the collective and individual sessions, the practices of acceptance of the subjects in the structure. And above all he meets the patients himself, one by one. He makes them talk, he lets them express themselves. As always with his proximity approach capable of bringing out extraordinary figures. A film and a collection of works not to be missed.


Davide Bracco
NP March 2024