POETRY
Brandgevaar / Fire Hazard
Poetry Collection · Dutch (with English intermezzo)
Short Pitch
A debut collection of around 200 poems exploring love, memory, and emotional loss. Moving between lyrical intimacy and darker self-reflection, Brandgevaar presents relationships as fragile, luminous, and ultimately vulnerable to time, grief, and disillusionment.
Expanded Synopsis
Brandgevaar is Filip Firlefijn’s poetic debut: a collection of approximately 200 poems in which love, language, and life itself are treated as fleeting and combustible realities. The title evokes both passion and danger—the beauty of feeling, and the risk of destruction that often accompanies it.
Across the collection, intimate poems of desire and tenderness gradually give way to a more personal and shadowed register. Certain texts sketch the background of a male figure whose voice carries traces of another era, suggesting memory, identity, and the burden of lived experience. In the later movement of the book, grief and emotional collapse become more central, deepening the earlier themes rather than contradicting them.
While the collection allows for layered interpretation, its emotional force remains direct and accessible. Brandgevaar / Fire Hazard is above all a poetic exploration of how love can illuminate, wound, and endure in memory.
SCREENPLAYS
Author’s note:
“I want to explicitly share a brief note regarding the intent behind these screenplays. The narratives utilize an engaging realism to question the complexities of the world we live in, with the ultimate goal of sparking more conscious progress. To that end, please note that no storylines or real-world events have been added to insult, attack, or reference any specific individuals. The characters and situations are entirely fictional and are not intended to carry personal resonance toward anyone.”
"These projects were originally developed without AI; however, AI was utilized for corrections, optimization and translation.”
Providence
Screenplay · English
Short Pitch
A psychological mystery about inheritance, memory, and the promise of another life. Former detective Philip Farrell searches for the missing heir of a reclusive printer. His investigation leads from Rhode Island into eastern Canada, where the traces of an unfamiliar life begin to challenge his confidence in the people he encounters—and in his own judgment.
Expanded Synopsis
Providence, Rhode Island, 2011. Former detective Philip Farrell earns his living tracing missing heirs. Still grieving his wife, he finds purpose in the patient work of reconstructing other people’s connections.
When printer Roland Parker dies, Philip takes on the search for his surviving family. Among the remnants of Parker’s business, a novel leads him to Sophie Winter, a former teacher whose experience of the printer unsettles the apparently straightforward assignment.
Following a scattered trail of records, photographs, and personal recollections, Philip travels through Québec toward the remote coastline of Newfoundland. Each encounter brings him closer to the person he seeks, while raising questions about what another person’s account can reveal—or conceal.
Providence combines the momentum of an investigation with an intimate exploration of loneliness, vulnerability, and trust. Across unfamiliar rooms and expansive northern landscapes, the possibility of a different future acquires an increasingly powerful hold.
…
Donkere Meren / Dark Lakes
Screenplay · Dutch
Short Pitch
A psychological thriller about inheritance, trauma, and deception. Former detective Filip Feenstra investigates the death of Roland Fokker and becomes entangled with two women shaped by his past. What begins as opportunism turns into a descent through manipulation, fractured identity, and buried violence.
Expanded Synopsis
Former detective Filip Feenstra is asked to trace the remaining relatives of the deceased Roland Fokker. His search leads him to two women who once played very different roles in Fokker’s life. When it becomes clear that one of them is psychologically unstable, Feenstra and the other woman form a secret alliance to seize the inheritance for themselves.
Their plan draws them into the remote Scottish Highlands, where isolation, desire, and long-suppressed memories begin to unravel the fragile balance between them. As motives shift and hidden wounds surface, the story moves through changing perspectives toward a final confrontation. Donkere Meren / Dark Lakes is a dark character study about abuse, greed, and the haunting persistence of the past.
L’Insulte / The Insult
Screenplay · French
Short Pitch
A psychological drama set in a French care home, adapted from the Dutch-language project De Belediging. A woman in a vulnerable phase of life becomes entangled with an elderly resident who claims to have shaped the career of a famous actress. Curiosity slowly turns into distrust, fear, and emotional pressure.
Expanded Synopsis
Set within a French cultural context, L’Insulte reimagines the earlier screenplay De Belediging for French cinema. A woman searching for direction accepts work in a residential care home, where she meets an elderly man who insists he once helped launch the career of a celebrated actress. Intrigued by his stories, she agrees to read aloud from an old screenplay that seems central to his past.
What begins as an unusual companionship gradually darkens. The resident’s manipulative presence, the woman’s emotional uncertainty, and the enclosed atmosphere of the institution create a growing sense of unease. After an accident and a seemingly harmless detective game among the residents, suspicion deepens into fear.
L’Insulte / The Insult is a chamber-like psychological drama about power, memory, and the subtle mechanisms through which trust can be undone.
De Belediging / The Insult
Screenplay · Dutch
Short Pitch
A psychological drama set in a care home, inspired in part by the atmosphere of Clem Schouwenaars’ Gras. A woman in a vulnerable phase of life forms an uneasy connection with an elderly resident who claims ties to a famous actress. What begins as curiosity slowly turns into suspicion, fear, and emotional entrapment.
Expanded Synopsis
A woman searching for direction in her life begins working in a residential care home. There she meets an elderly resident who insists he once played a decisive role in the rise of a celebrated actress. Fascinated by his stories, she agrees to read aloud from an old screenplay he keeps close at hand.
As their meetings continue, the atmosphere shifts. What first seemed eccentric and harmless gradually reveals deeper tensions. The man’s need for control, the woman’s uncertainty, and the enclosed world of the institution create an increasingly oppressive dynamic. After an accident and an initially playful detective game among the residents, distrust begins to grow into fear.
De Belediging / The Insult is a chamber-like psychological drama about manipulation, vulnerability, and the unsettling power of narrative.
Here and Now
Screenplay · English (multilingual dialogue: Arabic, German, Flemish)
Short Pitch
A three-part political drama that follows two brothers of Palestinian background raised in Belgium as the Syrian war reshapes their lives. When one brother leaves for the conflict, the other sets out to find him with the help of a journalist. Personal fate and geopolitical history collide in a story of exile, love, and survival.
Expanded Synopsis
Here and Now is a multilingual screenplay that combines fictional storytelling with elements inspired by contemporary history and nonfiction sources. Akil, the son of Palestinian refugees, grows up in Antwerp carrying the weight of displacement, fractured identity, and inherited conflict. While searching for purpose, he is confronted with a deeper crisis when his younger brother Marid leaves Europe for Syria.
Determined to bring him back, Akil begins a dangerous journey that draws him into the realities of war, ideology, and competing narratives of justice. Along the way he is joined by Fayrouz, a journalist whose own search for truth becomes inseparable from his mission. Their growing bond introduces a fragile human counterpoint to the violence surrounding them.
Spanning three acts, Here and Now moves between Belgium and the Middle East, between intimacy and history, realism and poetic atmosphere. It is a story about family, belonging, and the human cost of modern conflict.
Boon St.
Screenplay · English
Short Pitch
An experimental psychological drama inspired by Menuet. In postwar Boston, a damaged marriage is unsettled by the arrival of a young maid. Told through multiple conflicting perspectives, the story explores trauma, desire, guilt, and the unstable nature of truth.
Expanded Synopsis
Boon St. is a screenplay inspired by Louis Paul Boon’s provocative novel Menuet, reimagined in an American postwar setting. Aiden, haunted by psychological trauma after the bombing of Dresden, lives in Boston with his wife May as their relationship begins to fracture under emotional and financial pressure. When a young Jewish maid enters their household, the fragile balance between them starts to collapse.
The narrative unfolds through multiple voices, with each central figure recounting events from a personal and conflicting perspective. Their parallel testimonies gradually converge toward a dramatic final revelation. A framing prologue adds a fourth presence whose uncertain role deepens the tension between memory, authorship, and reality.
Combining psychological intensity with an unconventional structure, Boon St. is a study of intimacy, perception, and the stories people create in order to survive.
SHORT STORY
Die Rückkehr der Dinge
The Return of Things: a short story in Dutch
With “The Return of Things”, Filip won second place in 2002 in the short story competition (Literaire Prijs 2002) of his faculty at the University of Leuven, Belgium. The jury also nominated him in the category of Poetry for his poem Contract.