Adieu Filippi

Summary

Due to the many distribution problems surrounding his experimental The Obolus, film-maker Rik Kuypers opted for a more commercially attractive venture. Adieu Filippi (the second Belgo-Dutch co-production after The Enernies) was never completed as a result of financial and production problems. It is a psychological drama, based on the novel of the same name by the Flemish writer Blanka Gijselen. The love story is set in circus and conceived as the flashback of a remorseful clown who is looking back over his life. Filippi has never been able to accept the death of trapeze artist Arlette. She had been more interested in her partner Mario and an attempt by Filippi to Mario out of the way resulted in Arlette's death.

Kuypers would have liked to have made Adieu Filippi in colour, but was unable to do so due to the films tight budget (2.485.000 Belgian francs). The main sequences were filmed during live circus performances, with Kuypers and his team accompanying the circus of Toni Boltini (the film's co-producer) through Belgium and the Netherlands for an entire month.

Engineer and Audicon Films producer Tony Hermans, former chairman of the now-defunct high council for Flemish film culture, later lost all confidence in the gentle, poetically inspired film.

Kuypers was forced to shorten Adieu Filippi to 60 minutes, the musical score was never recorded and the soundtrack was never properly mixed.