Ad Fundum 1993

Sammy Sven de Ridder, Dennis Mathias Sercu, and Tom Tom Van Landuyt are eighteen-year-old freshmen at the university in Leuven, sharing rooms in a bustling fraternity house. They are eager to fit in and decide to join a student association, stepping into the world of hazing that marks the early days of their college life. The trio, newly minted as freshmen, agree to take on a series of tasks that the group assigns to them, a rite of passage that tests their courage, loyalty, and willingness to push boundaries.

In the midst of the initiation, the shy Sammy is given a shocking demand: deliver a jar of his own semen to the initiation ceremony. When he refuses, the moment spirals into a brutal punishment. Sammy is strapped to a flying carpet as part of the ritual, a spectacle intended to showcase grit and submission. The command to withdraw the carpet comes from the room’s leadership, and as the carpet disappears mid-flight, Sammy plummets to the ground. The fall is swift and fatal, leaving the campus stunned and the immediate cause of death unclear to those who were meant to enforce the ritual.

Following the tragedy, a quiet storm begins to swirl through Leuven. The police open an investigation, but the students refuse to speak, and the students’ union quickly blames Sammy’s death on alcohol. The university administration and the police decide to handle the matter with discretion, while the dean chooses to align with the police’s preliminary conclusions rather than listen to lingering accusations. In this tense atmosphere, the official narrative begins to harden around a single, controlled version of events, leaving questions unanswered and many scars unexamined.

As the formal inquiry stalls, Dennis and Tom decide to investigate on their own. Their probing leads them to a chilling discovery: a man who was once fraternized under the same leadership of Guy Bogaerts and subjected to the same dangerous hazing suffered a severe injury—the flying carpet episode brought him to a lifelong limp. This connection hints at a pattern of coercive rituals and raises doubts about how much the authorities want to uncover. The case of Sammy is pushed toward the courtroom, yet the judge rules that there is not enough proof to implicate Guy Bogaerts beyond a reasonable doubt, and the case ends with his acquittal.

Consumed by a thirst for truth and revenge, Dennis and Tom push harder, challenging Guy to demonstrate his nerve in a high-stakes test: steal the town’s flag from the town hall. The dare unfolds with dramatic risk as Guy ascends the municipal building and seizes the flag. An unknown figure abruptly opens a window, causing Guy to lose his footing and tumble to the ground. He is rescued by an ambulance, but his ultimate fate remains unclear, leaving a chilling ambiguity hanging over the town. Meanwhile, the police intensify inquiries, but the witnesses repeatedly fall silent, withholding information that could unravel the truth behind Sammy’s death.

Throughout this haunting chain of events, the story navigates the pressures of peer culture, the boundaries of loyalty, and the slow erosion of trust when institutions fail to provide clarity. The characters’ actions—whether driven by a desire to belong, a need for justice, or a fragile sense of retribution—keep a tense balance between accountability and the fear of speaking out. The film builds its atmosphere on hard choices, the cost of silence, and the perilous consequences that can emerge from rituals meant to bind a group together, leaving the viewer to ponder how far people will go to protect their own, and what it truly means to seek justice when the system seems to close ranks.