Leo Haelterman

In a surreal, bureaucratically rigid society where ending one’s own life requires an official government permit, depressed florist Stefan Pielek makes the mistake of attempting suicide without the proper paperwork. Under police supervision, he submissively files his official application and closes his shop while waiting for the approval. However, during his aimless wanderings through the city, he meets a young woman who calls herself Ophelia. After falling deeply in love and rediscovering the joy of living, Stefan receives the ultimate bureaucratical blow: his suicide permit is approved, meaning that by law, he no longer exists.

In this atmospheric psychological drama by Jef van der Heyden, concert pianist Kasper Bertheim lives under psychiatric care in Geel, haunted by the memory of a woman he believes has vanished into the underworld. After witnessing a funeral, he leaves his foster home and wanders through a surreal cityscape that seems suspended between life and death. Along the way, he encounters workers, drifters, priests and other outsiders who guide him deeper into his obsessive search. Adapted from a novel by Hubert Lampo, the film blends psychological drama with magical realism, creating an ambiguous world where madness, grief and imagination merge, and where it remains uncertain whether Kasper’s visions are delusions or glimpses of another reality.

Tomasz , a young Polish refugee wanders through Antwerp, looking for the woman who helped him to get his mother through the Iron Curtain. During his search he meets alcoholics, vagrants and other outcasts of the society.