Launch of the Documentary Film HAPPY SAD
As a tribute to the “unstoppable creative spirit” of the late Antwerp artist Daan Gielis (1988–2023), his neighbor and close friend Olivier Rynders spent the past few years making a documentary. It takes the name of Gielis’s most popular neon artwork, “Happy Sad,” and follows Daan and his partner Lotte during the intense six months leading up to an extremely high-risk operation.
HAPPY SAD
Running Time: 75 minutes
Synopsis
Just as the career of young artist Daan Gielis (34) is gaining momentum, his health rapidly deteriorates. He urgently needs to undergo extremely high-risk heart surgery. In “Happy Sad”, Daan and his beloved Lotte navigate between hope and fear in the six months leading up to the operation. With his characteristic drive, and a desperate kind of courage, Daan continues working on his oeuvre until the moment he is wheeled into the operating room: “There is no escaping anymore…”
Daan has been living with juvenile scleroderma since birth. The disease affects the connective tissue in nearly all the organs of his body, including the heart. The illness, and how to cope with it, is the starting point for both Daan’s art and his search for the meaning of life.
Daan’s neon works are being exhibited internationally. His impressive installation “Happy Sad” is a large illuminated smiley that both laughs and cries at the same time. In Daan’s life, happiness never comes without sorrow. By expressing that personal experience through emoji—a universal language—everyone can relate to the image. Daan’s unique and deceptively simple visual language leaves no one untouched: young flowers in colored neon that wilt before they even bloom (“a self-portrait”), a bronze depiction of adventurer Tintin, slumping his shoulders in exhaustion, a paradisiacal ceramic island with sad palm trees growing towards each other... Daan’s works are often dark, but there is always a silver lining.
While Daan faces an existential crisis in the final months before his surgery, he steadily keeps working to finish as many pieces as possible. He finds support from family and friends, collaborators, and fellow artists, such as Koen Van den Broek. Time is running out, because no one knows what will come after the surgery…
Director Oliver Rynders (°1972, Antwerp – Belgium) works as showrunner of tv-shows such as “Restaurant Misverstand”, which in 2024 was awarded an International Emmy Award for Non-fictional Entertainment in New York. HAPPY SAD is his debut as a documentary filmmaker and is a tribute to his neighbor and friend Daan Gielis. The original film score is produced by David Poltrock. VRT CANVAS is co-producer.