Kunst en Kino

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.

In 1833, when the fledgling Belgian kingdom still fears a Dutch invasion, recruits were selected annually from an age cohort by a draw of lots in each locality. In this grim, then contemporary drama by the 'father of Flemish literature', Hendrik Conscience, Jan Braems, a poor and naive farmers-boy, accepts the not uncommon offer by a rich family to sell his lucky ticket (out) to their son for a hefty sum compared to the miserable labor wages at the time. Army life is even harsher then a farmhand's, especially for a Dutch-speaking an-alphabet who simply can't understand his francophone superiors, and Jan's nature is not complacent enough for military discipline even by todays standards, so he soon gets into all kinds of trouble, including gambling his capital away and a venereal disease. When his girlfriend back home goes looking for him, her life is doomed as well.

An isolated farmhouse is chosen as a hide-out by criminals Jim and Charlie after an armed robbery. The Deleye family are forced to accept the situation under Jim's brutal domination.

Two troubled children fall in love and run away from Brussels to the Belgian coast, but find life on their own more difficult than expected.

The story of a small and conservative West-Flemish village opposing the construction of a bridge over the Scheldt.

Three erotic stories from classic writers Marguerite de Navarre, Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne and Guy de Maupassant.

Hélène Noris, a young Belgian woman from a bourgeois family, is haunted by a past affair with Tamara — now married to her father. Torn between desire and resentment toward Tamara’s conformist life, Hélène feels alienated in the provincial world she inhabits. To boost his social image, her stepfather René invites Parisian director Jean Gerfaud to stage an avant-garde version of Tartuffe. Tamara flirts with him, but Hélène seduces him first. A passionate, destructive affair begins, entangling love, jealousy, and ambition. When the play’s scandalous premiere sparks outrage, Jean marries Hélène, provoking Tamara’s fury. Yet Hélène, restless and defiant, betrays him with a soldier. In rage and humiliation, Jean confronts her in the “red room,” the space that once embodied their love and now their ruin.