jill-from-london's - Rented List

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Nuri Bilge Ceylan's critically acclaimed film tells the story of middle-aged photographer Mahmut, who is obliged to put up in his Istanbul apartment his unemployed young cousin Yusuf, who has left his home village in search of work.

Haunted by the feeling that the gap between his life and his ideals is growing. Mahmut grows increasingly irritated by his provincial young relative's encroachment into his closed and colourless world. With great wit and subtlety, 'Uzak' explores the isolation of city life and features outstanding performances from Muzaffer Ozdemir as Mahmut and Mehmet Emin Toprak as Yusuf. Tragically, Toprak was killed in a car accident shortly after completion of filming; he posthumously won, jointly with Ozdemir, the Best Actor prize at Cannes in 2003.

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"An Angel at My Table" is the internationally acclaimed second film by Oscar-winning director Jane Campion. It is an extraordinarily moving celebration of the life of Janet Frame, New Zealand's most distinguished author, based on her autobiographical trilogy.

The film follows Janet through her poor childhood in the depression and her growing fascination with literature; her painfully shy student days and subsequent treatment for misdiagnosed schizophrenia; and finally on her travels to Europe where she samples Bohemian life and achieves international success as a writer.

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Life for Bogdan couldn't seem more blissful, with a vacation by the sea along with his gorgeous wife and adorable young son. He has grown up and the days of glorious drinking trips and sexual adventures are long gone...

But when Bogdan unexpectedly runs into his best friends from high school, vivid memories immediately come flooding back. Suddenly, he hears the wild call of bachelor life. Torn between his family obligations and the lure of a fun night out with his old friends, Bogdan - or Boogie, as he was known back then- comes to a realisation. The gaps between his childhood pals have grown wider. Friendship, it seems, can no longer be based on common tastes in women, beer, or football teams.

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Zhang Zili wasn't always a badly paid security guard. He was once one of the best detectives on the police force. That is until injuries sustained during an investigation into a gruesome and unsolved murder case forced him into early retirement.

That was five years ago and the killings have started again. Determined to track down the killer, Zhang is drawn towards a mysterious woman seemingly connected to each victim. But nothing is what it appears to be...

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A man finds himself in love with two women. Paul (Mimi Branescu) is successful and married to Adriana (Mirela Oprisor) but is having an affair with the younger Raluca (Maria Popistasu). In the days leading to Christmas, Paul decides he needs to choose between his two lives.

Radu Muntean's frank, resonant and highly acclaimed film examines the emotional impact of adultery upon its three participants.

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Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus is a captivating and compelling road trip through contemporary Southern America, a marginalised world of unique and intense homemade culture.

Singer Jim White takes his muscle car through a gritty terrain of churches, prisons, truck stops, biker bars and coal mines, where everybody has a story in some form, almost invariably of sudden death, sin or redemption - yet all transformed by the characteristic grim humour and natural eloquence of the Southern imagination. Along the way are roadside encounters with present-day musical mavericks including the Handsome Family, Johnny Dowd, David Eugene Edwards and David Johansen; old time banjo player Lee Sexton; Rockabilly and mountain Gospel churches - and novelist Harry Crews telling grisly stories down a dirt track. And all the while, a strange Southern Jesus looms in the background.

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"Hunger" follows life in the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland shortly before and during the infamous 1981 IRA hunger strike led by Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender).

With and epic eye for the detail, the film provides a timely exploration of the final act of desperation, when the human body is the last and ultimate resources for protest.

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During the year 1961, the influential German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendnt reported for the 'New Yorker' magazine on the Nazi war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann. Her articles introducing her now-famous concept of the "Banality of Evil" triggered off an unprecedented controversy.

Using footage from the actual Eichmann trial and weaving a narrative that spans three countries, Margarethe von Trotta turns the often invisible passion for thought into immersive dramatic cinema.

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An alien entity inhabits the earthly form of a seductive young woman who combs the Scottish highways in search of the human prey it is here to plunder. It lures its isolated and forsaken male victims into an otherworldly dimension where they are stripped and consumed.

But life in all its complexity starts to change the alien. It begins to see itself as 'she', as human, with tragic and terrifying consequence. 'Under the Skin' is about seeing ourselves through alien eyes.

'Locke' is the story of one man's life unravelling in a tension-fuelled race against time. Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) has the perfect family, his dream job, and tomorrow should be the crowning moment of his career. But one phone call will force him to make a decision that will put it all on the line.

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Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) first met in their twenties in 'Before Sunrise'; Reunited in their thirties in 'Before Sunset'; and, now, in director Richard Linklater's amazing 'Before Midnight', they face the past, present and future; family, romance and love.

Now on a writer's retreat in Greece, the couple looks for a night of passion, but instead their idyllic night turns into a test of their relationship and a discussion of what the future holds for them.

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Is there someone who lingers in your memory - someone who makes you wonder what might have been? Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy make magic again, reprising their 'Before Sunrise' roles of Jesse and Celine and reuniting with director Richard Linklater (School of Rock) in this engaging tale of love and

renewal. When Jesse and Celine first met in the mid 90's, their few hours together in Vienna were spontaneous and life-altering. Nine years later, lightning strikes twice. They unexpectedly meet in Paris...and have only one fading afternoon to decide if they should share their tomorrows. Smart, witty, real and unfolding largely in real time to heighten its immediacy, 'Before Sunset' glows with the moments that are every heart's greatest adventure.

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Yesterday strangers, today inseparable soulmates. But separate they must in just a few hours. Jesse and Celine are making every moment count, pouring as much living as they can into the time 'Before Sunrise'. From Richard Linklater comes another smartly observed tale of young people at a crossroads.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play twenty-somethings who meet on a train in Europe, sense a connection and explore after-hours Vienna together. The people, places and allure of the city become their sudden itineraries. Love is their destination. On the way there's the mutual sharing of hopes, jokes, dreams, worry and wonder. It's a day to linger in their memories. And a valentine to young love forever.

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We are responsible for our dreams. This is the ultimate lesson of psychoanalysis - and fiction cinema. The makers of 'The Pervert's Guide to Cinema' return with 'The Pervert's Guide to Ideology'.

Philosopher Slavoj Zizek and filmmaker Sophie Fiennes use their interpretation of moving pictures to present a compelling cinematic journey into the heart of ideology - the dreams and beliefs that shape our common practices.

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The convergences and complexities of life in a middle-class suburb of Recife, Brazil, are played out in mesmerising style in this stunning debut feature from film critic turned director Kleber Mendonca Filho.

Taking a broad, diverse set of strikingly realistic characters -including a bored housewife seeking solace in technology, a descendant of colonial landowners struggling with his dark, mysterious past and a security company employed to provide protection to them all - Filho paints a rich, detailed portrait of a community connected and engulfed by fear, desire and the incessant murmur of modern life. A beautifully subtle, fiercely intelligent and utterly engrossing snap-shot of present-day Brazil, this bold, compelling and endlessly intriguing film has announced one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary world cinema.