Jan Brouwer

'In 1980, the VPRO asked me to make a short film about the Russian pianist Youri Egorov. It was allowed to last ten minutes and was broadcast in the then Extra section. We were 25, both born in May 1954. It was my second short film, and I was very nervous. Youri didn't like cameras and even less interviews. But he agreed, "because you were even shyer than he was," his friend Jan Brouwer told me later. In the years that followed, we would meet up sometimes, and on one such occasion, during the last concert of Vladimir Horowitz, I promised him that later, when we would both be 50, I would make 'a real' film about a long and interesting life. Youri smiled politely. When he died in 1988, I said goodbye to him at his home, and Jan Brouwer reminded me of my promise. So I made it after all, a film about a short and intense life.' - Eline Flipse