Cecile Rigolle

The family patriarch Van Paemel is a farmer on baron de Wilde's estate. His mild-mannered son Désire is accidentally shot during a hunting party on the estate and remains an invalid. Eduard, the eldest son, is a member of the socialist workers' movement and involved in strike actions in the city. Against her father's wishes, his daughter Cordule starts an affair with the poacher Masco. His youngest daughter, Romanie, is forced to work as a domestic servant at the castle, where she is seduced by Maurice, the baron's son and heir, and becomes pregnant. When the youngest son Kamiel also has to leave the farm because he is drafted into the army, the lack of workers on Van Paemel's farm becomes critical. As a result, the family is evicted from their home because they cannot pay the rent. Three of the children emigrate to the USA, one becomes a nun and one dies, until only the farmer and his wife remain.

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.

Leontientje, the Parisian niece of an East Flemish farming family, comes to stay. Aunt Zeunia is dying and has asked for her. Her visit completely disrupts life on the farm. The men fight for her attention, and the city girl is delighted by every bit of nature: 'Comme c'est beau!'. Her Parisian manners—two kisses for everyone—drive the farmer's wife up the wall: "All that fuss!" But the youngest farmer starts dreaming...

A Flemish bourgeois family in 1920 is dominated by three wealthy aunts who constantly threaten to disinherit them. When their daughter Eggers falls in love with the gentleman farmer Flack, a bon vivant, the aunts want to quell this passion by any means necessary.

The series Auwch revolves around everyday painful and embarrassing situations in which the main characters are constantly getting into, with the familiar awkward silences result ... the apparent inability of men to understand women, is it often central, but also the awkwardness in dealing with friends and with fellow VIP's in their professional lives.