Accepting the Berlinale's top prize, director Nicolas Philibert said he was deeply touched by the jury's decision to award it to a documentary rather than a work of fiction.
"That documentary can be considered cinema in its own right touches me deeply," he said.
"For 40 years I have always fought for it to be seen as much."
Shot over three years, the film follows life at a daycare centre aboard The Adamant, a barge moored on the right bank of the Seine, where patients and carers interact in ways that break with what Philibert sees as the dehumanisation of ordinary psychiatry.
"It is as if we no longer wanted to see the 'mad'," he wrote.
"They are no longer discussed except through the prism of their dangerous nature, which is most often fantasised."
"In this extremely devastated context, a place like The Adamant seems a little miracle."
The festival's Silver Bear for best leading actor went to Sofia Otero, who plays an eight-year-old transgender child in 20,000 Species of Bees.
"It is rare to see someone convey so many emotions but remain simple and shattering," jury president Kristen Stewart said.
"Especially in performances given to us by a child".
14°C