Hugo Claus

Thirty years ago Sylvia Kristel became world-famous with 'Emmanuelle'. This erotic film was the starting point of a curious career, during which Sylvia acted in more than 50 international film productions, including a short-lived career in Hollywood. A turbulent life followed, in which alcohol and drug addictions formed a recurring theme. Penniless, she now lives in a small two-room apartment in Amsterdam. Last year La Kristel took control of her life: her autobiography Nue was published in France and has already been sold to several countries.

A Flemish family comes together in their maternal home. Oscar, the grotesque patriarch, his bedridden wife Magda, his feeble son Johnny and his daughter Julia, who's married to a Moroccan soccer player. There's something wrong with Magda, who's not only plagued by her physical decay, but also by visions of her dead sister Marleen.

A Flemish family comes together in their maternal home. Oscar, the grotesque patriarch, his bedridden wife Magda, his feeble son Johnny and his daughter Julia, who's married to a Moroccan soccer player. There's something wrong with Magda, who's not only plagued by her physical decay, but also by visions of her dead sister Marleen.

Short gangster film based on a novella by Belgian writer Hugo Claus.

A documentary celebrating 25 years of flemish subsidised cinema.

The Heylen family's annual get-together to commemorate their mother derails completely.

The Heylen family's annual get-together to commemorate their mother derails completely.

The Heylen family's annual get-together to commemorate their mother derails completely.

Biographical film about the life and work of the Belgian painter Jan Cox. Cox had a tempestuous youth, during which he co-founded the Jeune Peinture Belge group and worked on the fringes of the Cobra movement.

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.

In this erotic drama, Marcel (Ralph Michael) fantasizes about being with his daughter-in-law Simone (Beatie Edney) after the death of his wife. The woman pretends to be surprised over his attention but does nothing to discourage his advances. He promises to build her a swimming pool in order to further his fantasies. The story is taken from the novel by Junichiro Tamizaki.

A tale centered on the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302 where the Flemish rank and file won a major victory over the glorious French knights.

A tale centered on the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302 where the Flemish rank and file won a major victory over the glorious French knights.

When Anna, a twenty-eight-year-old photographer, is put in charge of a report on the restoration works at The Ostend Museum of Modern Art, she discovers by chance five paintings signed Constant Permeke, whose power and mystery move and fascinate her.She decides to embark on a quest to find out about who Permeke actually was, the places where he lived, how he worked, what experiences he went through.

Documentary exploring why Belgian television doesn't invest more money in Belgian cinema as is the case in e.g. the netherlands.

A factory worker is employed in the desolate, cold-storage cellars of a brewery. His spare time he devotes to collecting romantic images of wild flowers and sticking newspaper cuttings in an album, demonstrating a preference for more gruesome stories. Murders, rapes and acts of violence are the events which accompany his everyday existence and invest it with a tinge of color.

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.

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 second movie version, now in color, of Flemish (heimat-)author Ernest Claes' classical novel, titled after the nickname (Dutch 'the White', referring to a blond male) of the main character. The smart but naughty farmhands son's eternal mischief, pranks and disobedience drive his elders (especially teachers, family and father's grumpy employer, a rich farmer, but also neighbors and even the kind curate whose liturgical server he is) and classmates to despair in a time when a boy's punishment was still inevitable, swift and often severe; thus when his mother catches him skinny dipping she takes all his clothes home, forcing him to a long walk of shame, dreading dad's wrath all the way. This version also stresses the story's social and Flamingant aspects.

In this film version of the Dutch-language classic ('heimat'-)novel by Flemish author Felix Timmermans, the title character is a city-boy from Lier who after recovering from a life-threatening disease changes his life completely and his name to the self-invented Pallieter. He moves in with Charlote, a naive, caring relative in the country, where he starts frolicking, no longer caring for image, career or possessions, but concentrates on enjoying life -such as a draftee relative's Brueghelian wedding- and finds love with Marieke. A dark story-line however is when projected work on the river in the name of economical progress threatens the rural landscape they have fallen in love with...

Well to do business man Pierre falls for the unpredictable and free spirited Toni. They begin a relationship, despite the fact that she's living with another man who is the father of her child.

A gang of six wealthy, well-dressed and well-spoken hoodlums break into a married couple's house and rape the wife while forcing the husband to watch. Thus begins a dogged investigation by a determined detective who quickly finds that their cult-like solidarity can be a serious obstacle to breaking them.

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

The tribulations of an American GI during the Ardennes offensive and the people he encounters, keeps you riveted all the way through the unexpected ending. Great characters in a cold and snowy Belgium.

Short sci-fi where a man finds a robotic woman a.k.a. 'toygirl'.

A bitter-sweet story of a young sales assistant and a truck driver trapped between their dreams and the economic depression.

The rich and conservative Edward can not forgive his younger wife who had been unfaithful. She's trying to get his attention by flirting with a Dutch tourist.

A film about friendship between forsaken boys.

A boy is resentful of his mother's budding romance with the best friend of her late husband, and is torn and confused about his emerging feelings for Toni, a young girl in his neighborhood. His fascination with an antique Oriental knife leads him to steal it and he uses it to try to impress Toni while at the same time trying to break up his mother's relationhip.

An independent-thinking doctor in a rural community with his own ideas of how medicine should be practiced begins to find himself ostracized from the community after one of his patients commits suicide.

An independent-thinking doctor in a rural community with his own ideas of how medicine should be practiced begins to find himself ostracized from the community after one of his patients commits suicide.