Slobodan Perovic, Zoran Radmilovic, Slavko Simic, Pavle Vujisic, Ljuba Tadic, Stevo Zigon

Synopsis:

The film is the screening of the homonymous novella by Anton Chekhov, about a doctor working in a provincial hospital under Tsarist Russia, who, having become quite apathetic, spends his days aimlessly without any interest even for his work. One day in Ward Six, the mental ward, he meets one of his former students, a rebellious, restless spirit. Attracted by what he feels are the original and new ideas of his patient, the doctor spends more and more time with him and giving himself up to meditation, slowly begins losing touch with reality. His colleagues first ridicule him, report him to the authorities as being mad, then reject him, until finally the doctor ends up in Ward Six himself. From judge and jailer, he becomes judged and jailed and, at his expense, discovers that, in imprisonment, there exists no philosophy or meaningful literature that can free or save a man.

“It took me three weeks to shoot ‘Ward Six'. And it was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life. Conceived for 16mm because of a lack of other resources, ‘Ward Six' was quickly expanded. A few years later, it was included among the best ten films in Yugoslavian history. In 1977, it was selected for the ‘Un certain regard' section at Cannes and was bestowed the Catholic Film Office Award, the same award given to Wajda and Pasolini. A few years later, it was transposed onto videocassette in the United States . I have never publicly thanked Yugoslavian television for this.” (Lucian Pintilie, ‘Bricabrac', Humanitas, Bucharest , 2003)

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