When cinema breaks the clichés about psychiatry

At the Edge of the World invites viewers to discover the behind-the-scenes of a closed ward in a psychiatric hospital. Screened on Sunday, September 27, this Belgian drama closed the festival “cinema gone mad – new perspectives on mental health”, in Nice. Sweeping aside prejudices surrounding this institution, this fiction confirms once again the role of cinema as a tool for understanding and inclusion.

One in five French people is directly or indirectly affected by a mental disorder, reported the Mental Health Alliance in February 2026.

Faced with the increasing trend of disorders affecting mental health, the Les Variétés cinema hosted the festival “cinema gone mad – new perspectives on mental health”. Initiated by the Erié Foundation, a series of fiction and documentary films was deployed across eight French cities, including Nice, the weekend of September 25-27. For this 2026 edition, the idea was once again to provide the general public with the keys to understanding in order to change their perspective on mental health. Each screening is followed by a discussion with the filmmakers, local professionals working in the field of health and the viewers. All moderated by a film critic.

Released in theaters on June 10, the fiction At the Edge of the World closed this festival in Nice beautifully. Co-directed by Guérin Van de Vorst and Sophie Muselle, this drama tells the story of a trainee nurse taking her first steps in a closed psychiatric ward. Her experience takes a different turn when she develops affection for a young patient who does not understand her confinement. Shaken, Alexia questions the institution. This film plunges viewers into a dysfunctional facility, revealing the complexity of the human bond uniting caregivers and patients. This fictional drama highlights a realistic and humane approach to pathologies and the functioning of psychiatric institutions.

“This subject is too rarely addressed and often caricatured. We started from the observation that in most films schizophrenics are killers“, declared Guérin Van de Vorst. Cinema has long fed prejudices about psychiatric patients, fueled by a lack of knowledge of pathologies. Yet cinema can prove to be a wonderful tool for inclusion.

A theatricalization of psychiatry

Mystery surrounds psychiatric hospitals. Hidden from view, this place becomes the ideal setting for telling stories. The sensationalization of madness is frequent in cinema, particularly with the systematic portrayal of crises and hallucinations. The repeated association of involuntary hospitalization with confinement creates confusion between psychiatric care and prisons.

A nurse from the Nice University Hospital, Maëlle Bertier, shared the fear of trainees when they arrive in a psychiatric ward: “they are afraid because of the very present prejudices in films, particularly with serial killers and psychopaths.”

Indeed, Édouard Zarifian, a major figure in humanistic psychiatry, noted the lack of nuance in the representation of patients and caregivers in cinema. Murderer, victim of society or a mad scientist, the character of the patient must not leave viewers indifferent. During the screening of “At the Edge of the World“, the co-director notably referenced the drama “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), in which Jack Nicholson is victimized by a sadistic nurse using electroshock and lobotomy as punishment.

Cinema must provoke strong emotions in viewers. Guérin Van de Vorst revealed the existence of another version of the screenplay charged against caregivers: “but through my immersion (in a psychiatric hospital ed.), I realized that violence was structural, we cannot blame people who give body and soul to care.“

The whole complexity of the film industry is to manage to keep the audience on the edge of their seats until the last second. The spectacular is often privileged for dramatic requirements, at the risk that images stigmatize certain segments of society.

Cinema to break the ice

The big screen can make accessible realities that escape us, by initiating the general public to reflection. In “At the Edge of the World“, the filmmakers chose a first-person immersion. Viewers follow a trainee nurse in a psychiatric care center, with ample camera movements. “We are what we call Alexia’s one-eyed point of view, we only see what she sees“, explained Frédéric Mercier, a film critic. This approach pushes the public to question what they do not see, leaving them perplexed at each situation encountered.

Furthermore, the long takes have very few cuts. “We wanted the duration to be experienced and distressing for viewers“, assured the co-director. The plot is mainly inside the closed ward of the psychiatric hospital, so much so that the public ends up feeling confinement with the patients. For Guérin Van de Vorst, the idea was to “allow viewers to enter with her (ed. the trainee) into this place, so little known and stigmatized in cinema.”

However, in the theater, some viewers noted the absence of representation of certain departments and the marginal place given to the psychiatrist in the film. “When we are immersed with a character, temporality is only that of the main character“, clarified the film critic. According to the cinephile, the notion of reality in cinema is nourished by the point of view adopted in the film. In this case, it is that of a trainee nurse inside a care center.

This immersion offers an experience that is both collective and sensitive. Nicolas Philibert, the patron of the festival “cinema gone mad“, emphasized the universal power of cinema: “it helps change our perspective on mental illness, to break down the barriers that distance us from those who suffer from it and whom the isolation in which society keeps them drives to despair.“

The seventh art remains a mode of expression anchored in reality, exaggerating the lines to add symbolism. It is up to viewers to generalize what they see or to use it for reflection.