A clown's marriage lasted longer than his spotlight—this is what happens after the tent comes down.
Ulrike and Olli meet in 1985 while on tour with Circus Roncalli. He is living his childhood dream as part of the successful clown duo 'Illi & Olli'. She has recently left her life as a nurse in Berlin behind. When the season is over, she moves with him to Switzerland. What began as a circus fairy tale eventually becomes reality, amid creative crises, raising children, and ultimately growing older.
Direction
Son films parents with surgical tenderness and uncomfortable honesty.
Editing
Jarring cuts between archival circus glory and present-day kitchen mundanity.
Production
Decades of home footage transformed into something uncomfortably universal.
Director
Diego Hauenstein
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Roncalli represented the last golden era of European traditional circus before animal bans and spectacle culture killed the form.
The German title references a classic circus accident—Olli's near-death fall becomes metaphor for a life spent dangerously, then safely, then questionably.
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