Averroès & Rosa Parks

AT AVERROÈS & ROSA PARKS is the second volume of Nicolas Philibert’s ‘psychiatric triptych’, bookended by SUR L’ADAMANT and LA MACHINE À ÉCRIRE ET AUTRES SOURCES DE TRACAS. The filmmaker focuses here on two wards of the Esquirol Hospital, which forms part of the same Paris Central Psychiatric Group as the Adamant day-care centre. One-to-one conversations and group meetings between patients and professionals are unobtrusively captured by Philibert in static shots and long scenes that evolve in surprising ways. His tender, curious, patient gaze avoids all manner of sentimentality or manipulation. We become privileged witnesses of the lives, fears and struggles of a variety of individuals whose psychiatric diagnoses are only occasionally spelled out. This is a film about a kind of psychiatry that aims at the whole person, dealing not with cases but highly complex, eccentric, sensitive human beings. Speech and body language reign, and the acts of listening and engaging are of vital importance. Philibert explores suffering and vulnerability with unusual intimacy, delivering a film that leaves us with the feeling that—even if only in small pockets and select environments—hope for the human soul still exists. (Cristina Álvarez López)

Nicolas Philibert: LA VOIX DE SON MAÎTRE (1978, KO-REGIE), LA VILLE LOUVRE (1990), UN ANIMAL, DES ANIMAUX (1995), LA MOINDRE DES CHOSES (1996), QUI SAIT ? (1999), ÊTRE ET AVOIR (2002), RETOUR EN NORMANDIE (2007), NÉNETTE (2009), LA NUIT TOMBE SUR LA MÉNAGERIE (K, 2010), LA MAISON DE LA RADIO (2012), DE CHAQUE INSTANT (2018), SUR L’ADAMANT (2022)