Hugo Van Den Berghe

1985. Georges is a born market vendor. As a driven salesman he sells anything, anytime, to anyone. When he hears that the Pope is coming to Belgium, he smells his chance. In addition to the grounds, where tens of thousands of believers will attend an open-air mass, Café Derby is for rent. Georges is sure to earn a small fortune. But his wife and five children are not convinced. It would be another move in too short a time. But as George puts his mind to something...

"Why do you stutter?" a son asks his father, the comedian. "It's a long story," replies the father. "I was afraid of that," says the son, "can't you make a film about it?" As a viewer, you then step into the film and see Freek de Jonge performing as a committed street artist.

An Antwerp journalist finds his daily life increasingly disrupted by unexplained phenomena, such as an authentic letter from 1919 that refers to an event taking place at a much later date. Because these disturbances are consistently linked to the name “Joachim Stiller,” the journalist becomes obsessed with it. The resolution, which is closely tied to his traumatic experiences from the Second World War, takes place with a psychiatrist—and later at an abandoned railway station in an Antwerp suburb. Interwoven with this is a subplot about an Antwerp art dealer who believes he can become rich through a new form of painting. To achieve this, he takes a mentally disabled artist hostage. The narrative also follows various romantic entanglements involving the journalist, which ultimately lead to his happy experience of fatherhood.

The story takes place in 14th-century Flanders, a region suffering under the oppressive and bloody occupation of the French King, Philip the Fair. Tensions between the arrogant French nobility and the proud Flemish guilds reach a boiling point. Following the bloody uprising known as the Bruges Matins, an armed conflict becomes inevitable.Without their imprisoned leader, Robert of Bethune—the "Lion of Flanders"—craftsmen, peasants, and local nobles unite. This leads to the legendary Battle of the Golden Spurs on July 11, 1302, near Kortrijk, where an untrained Flemish citizen army faces the elite French cavalry.

A 40-year-old mother struggles to deal with the anxiety of growing older after her eldest daughter moves out and the youngest distances herself.

A respected police commissioner has a reputation as a opera lover, but by night he also enjoys plunging into the transvestite scene. In addition, he harbors a longing for his very own sister. When he learns that his wife has been murdered, he tries to implicate the set designer who has designs on his sister.

The Mayor of a small Flemish town is determined at all costs to save a unique bird sanctuary from a ruthless businessman who advocates a housing development on the site. The main story, though, centres on a childhood trauma that unites the two men and a dark femme fatale whom one desires and the other attempts to manipulate.

A border guard faces a crisis of conscience when he learns that an old comrade is smuggling butter across the border.

Two people meet again after more than 50 years. They were lovers once, but their lives took different turns: she married his best friend. Fifty years later, they meet again and passion flares up. But is it possible to pick up the thread of a life that unraveled fifty years ago? The story of a wonderful last love affair, which is relived with the intensity of a first.

Hugo Claus rewrote and directed Friday as the cinematic version of his original 1969 play of the same name. Just as in the play, the story begins with the theme of incest, as the father Georges (Frank Aendenboom) returns from serving his jail sentence for that crime. Unlike the earlier play, however, the film does not emphasize that aspect of the story. When Georges gets home he finds out that his wife Jeanne (Kitty Courbois) has had an illegitimate child by a younger man, Erik (Herbert Flack), and now both of them must somehow try to return to a normal life, given their only too obvious lapses in moral judgment. As the husband and wife try hard to accommodate each other's failings and start to get to know each other again, Erik comes back into the picture. Now the three of them must resolve the deep-seated conflicts that brought them to this emotionally-wrought juncture of love and betrayal.

The 1950s. A family has its annual family reunion to commemorate the anniversary of mother's death. People drink and eat heavily and after a while all restrictions are lost. Family members start venting old frustrations, discussions and tensions. Eventually one homosexual young man gets depressed and a drama escalates.