A film by Jan Vromman and Jannes Callens.
Freedom, humanity, and care are not mutually exclusive. Mahboul shows how an alternative model of care offers a community of people with sometimes severe mental health challenges a space to live and create. Those excluded elsewhere find refuge at La Devinière. The institution grants residents as much freedom as possible and avoids the use of psychoactive medication. They are given space to fully express their crises, their need for communication, and their drive for expression. Creative workshops and contact with the outside world are actively encouraged. Care is primarily understood as the shared shaping of everyday life. Residents are not treated as ill, but as different: they do not need to be cured, but are allowed to be themselves.
Mahboul develops a participatory creative process in which residents, caregivers, filmmakers, and artists work together on the film. From this collaboration emerges a shared reality in which documentary and fiction intertwine. Using a portable boat, referencing the Ship of Fools, the group eventually moves through the nearby city, where it confronts the outside world.
The gaze remains compassionate without ever becoming sentimental or pitying. Filmmakers and filmed participants stand on equal ground, influence one another, and share daily life: working, laughing, and eating together. Reality is not obscured, but the joy of encounter is felt in every scene.
Mahboul invites the audience to reconsider psychological vulnerability, freedom, happiness, and the fragile boundary between those perceived as “inside” or “outside” society.
JANNES CALLENS 