Diary of a Mad Old Man

La Dolce Vita

Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

Minuet

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.

The Dance of the Heron

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.

Like Two Drops of Water

The fainthearted cigar trader Ducker keeps himself quiet during World War II. That changes when parachutist Dorbeck lands in his backyard. It turns out the parachutist bears a remarkable resemblance to Ducker. Ducker follows Dorbeck blindly, becomes involved in the Dutch resistance and soon starts killing people. When he escapes through German lines to the freed South Netherlands, no one has ever heard of Dorbeck.

That Joyous Eve...

The story of three torn apart families on the verge of Sinterklaasavond, the Dutch equivalent of Christmas Eve.

The Enemies

In the freezing winter of 1944, the devastating Battle of the Bulge rages across Belgium. Amid the chaos, an American soldier separated from his unit crosses paths with Richard, a cynical young Belgian boy, and Willy, a wounded German soldier they take as a prisoner.Stranded in a desolate, snowy landscape where survival overrides military allegiance, the three mismatched individuals form a fragile, surreal bond. As they trudge through the war-torn countryside, their basic survival instincts push political ideologies aside.

Vrijdag

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.

My Friend, or The Hidden Life of Jules Depraeter

Based on a notorious Belgian court case, My Friend, or The Hidden Life of Jules Depraeter follows Jules Depraeter, a charming but manipulative businessman from Ghent who becomes entangled in robbery, fraud and conspiracy. When police discover stolen jewels and securities in the trunk of a garage owner linked to him, a complex investigation unfolds. During the trial, Depraeter attempts to save himself by accusing a respected investigating judge of masterminding the crimes and plotting the murder of his own wife. Told through courtroom scenes and flashbacks, the film gradually reveals a web of lies, corruption and psychological manipulation.

Ragazzi di Trastevere

A short film made by Umberto Lenzi as his graduation project at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC)