Max, an aimless middle-aged man, travels to Brussels. As he wanders the city streets, he meets three unlikely companions, with tensions rising among the group each passing hour.

In 1920s Belgium, poverty drives many to seek a fresh start across the Atlantic. Among them is Jan Leemans, an ambitious inventor from the Flemish countryside. When his early dishwasher design catches the eye of Walter, a powerful Belgian industrialist in New York, Jan is offered a life-changing opportunity. He leaves behind his beloved Marie in Kallo, promising to send for her once he’s established. But in America’s fast-paced industry, Jan becomes entangled in ambition, loyalty, and deception. Back home, Marie’s overbearing mother sabotages their connection by intercepting letters and sowing doubt. As Jan’s dreams take shape, so does the growing distance between him and his past. When Walter’s sophisticated daughter Louise sets her sights on him, Jan must choose between a dazzling future—and the love he may lose forever...

Eline is an insecure physiotherapist who takes care of six-year-old Joy, the daughter of the embittered and suspicious widower Lars. Joy ended up in a rehabilitation center due to a car accident. Eline soon realizes that Joy's father Lars is the key to the daughter's recovery. In her determination to help Joy, she pushes her insecurity aside and confronts Lars. Since the car accident, he has only focused on himself and his work.

Set in wartime Belgium, two brothers—Staf (or Louis) and Dirk Segers—grow up inseparable, only to find their bond torn apart during WWII when one joins the Resistance and the other sides with the occupiers.

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.

Lieve is a Belgian woman who marries just as World War II is beginning. When the Germans invade, her husband goes off to fight them, but he swiftly returns home after the invasion succeeds. Later, he decides that the Germans are on the right side of things, and goes off to fight for them on the Eastern Front. Soon afterward, a resistance fighter is stranded on her doorway, and she hides him. The two of them fall in love, and the conflicts and joys of this relationship cause Lieve continued grief well after the end of the war.