maggs's - Rented List

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"My Rembrandt" is set in the world of the Old Masters and offers a mosaic of gripping stories in which unrestrained passion for Rembrandt's paintings leads to dramatic developments and unexpected plot turns.

While art collectors such as Eijk and Rose-Marie de Mol van Otterloo, the American Thomas Kaplan and the Scottish Duke of Buccleuch show us their special connection with 'their' Rembrandt, French baron Eric de Rothschild puts two Rembrandts up for sale, triggering a hard political battle between the Rijksmuseum and the Louvre. The film also follows aristocratic Dutch art dealer Jan Six as he seems to be on the trail of not just one but two 'new' Rembrandt paintings. This nerve-wracking journey of discovery seems to be the realisation of his biggest boyhood dream.

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In a dangerous adventure, six men sail from Peru to Polynesia on a fragile balsa-wood raft risking their lives for an idea that could change history. Led by Thor, a handsome captain who can't swim, the crew have no modern equipment and only a parrot for company.

Battling tidal waves, sharks and demons of the deep, it is six men against nature as the Kon-Tiki strives to reach land.

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In the small village of Alcarras in Catalonia, the peach farmers of the Sole family spend every summer together picking fruit from their orchard.

But when new plans arise to install solar panels and cut down trees, the members of this tight-knit group suddenly face eviction - and the loss of far more than their home. Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlinale, the sophomore film from Carla Simon (Summer 1993) is a sun-dappled, deeply moving ensemble portrait of the countryside and a community's unbreakable bonds.

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A festival favourite with critics and audiences in 2013 - and winner of Best Film at Edinburgh - 'A World Not Ours' is an intimate, humorous portrait of three generations in exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh in southern Lebanon.

Based on a wealth of personal recordings, family archives, and historical footage, the film is a sensitive and illuminating study of belonging, friendship and family.

It is the autumn of 1913 and Europe stands on the brink of the war to end all wars. A country house party assembles to celebrate a world that is passing into history; and gunfire in the depths of the English countryside will soon be heard in the killing fields of Flanders.

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On the cusp of turning 40, relentlessly laced into corsets by her exasperated staff, the uptight world of the Austrian monarchy is the last thing Empress Sisi (Vicky Krieps) cares about.

Decadence is far more exciting - so she heads off on a grand trip across Europe to call on old friends (and old flames). But the strings tying her to royal duty continue to tighten, and her attempts to make life more exciting turn into acts of rebellion. A vibrant, refreshingly mischievous take on the period drama with an award-winning lead in Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), 'Corsage' is the stunning, stylish new film from acclaimed director Marie Kreutzer.

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Based on Boris Johnson's tumultuous first months as Prime Minister, 'This England' traces the impact on the country of the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The drama takes us inside the halls of power, as Johnson (Kenneth Branagh) grapples with Covid-19, Brexit, and a controversial personal and political life. Interwoven are stories from around the country: scientists racing to understand the virus; the doctors, nurses and care-home workers on the frontline; and ordinary people whose lives were thrown into turmoil.

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Winner of numerous festival prizes all over the world, 'When I Saw You' is the second film from the Jordan-based Palestinian film-maker Annemarie Jacir, (and Palestine's 2012 Oscar' entry) and is set in 1967 when thousands of Palestinian refugees fled to camps in Jordan in the wake of the June War.

The 11 year-old Tarek, along with his mother Ghaydaa, has been separated from his father in the general chaos. Stifled and bored in the refugee camp, Tarek goes in search of his father in the forest around and ends up with a group of fedayeen who adopt him as a kind of mascot. Soon his mother arrives too, and they try to make their way home, leaving behind victimhood with a new-found sense of hope and freedom.

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Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Bela Tarr's epic rendering of Laszlo Krasznahorkai's novel, about the decline of Communism in Eastern Europe, is a unique and visionary masterpiece that defies classification and transcends genre.

Set in a struggling Hungarian agricultural collective, a group of lost souls reeling from the collapse of their Communist utopia face an uncertain future, until the arrival of a charismatic stranger in whom they believe lies their salvation. The collective's individual experiences and fates are gradually revealed in Tarr's immaculately composed, brilliantly photographed and bleakly comic tour-de-force, which confirmed his place as one of contemporary cinema's few genuine auteurs.

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Klaus Haro's "The Fencer" is a touching true life drama about Endel Nelis, a young man who arrives in Haapsalu, Estonia, in the early 1950s. Having left Leningrad to escape the secret police, he finds work as a teacher and founds a sports club for his students.

Endel becomes a father figure to his students and starts teaching them his great passion - fencing, which causes a conflict with the school's principal. Envious, the principal starts investigating Endel's background... Endel learns to love the children and looks after them; most are orphans as a result of the Russian occupation. Fencing becomes a form of self-expression for the children and Endel becomes a role model. The children want to participate in a national fencing tournament in Leningrad, and Endel must make a choice; risk everything to take the children to Leningrad or put his safety first and disappoint them.

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The stunning debut from Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells, 'Aftersun' juxtaposes a hopeful coming-of-age story with a poignant, intimate family portrait that leaves an indelible impression.

At a fading vacation resort in the late 1990's, 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) treasures rare time together with her loving and idealistic father, Calum (Paul Mescal). As a world of adolescence creeps into view, beyond her eye Calum struggles under the weight of life outside of fatherhood. Twenty years later, Sophie's tender recollections of their last holiday become a powerful and heartrending portrait of their relationship, as she tries to reconcile the father, she knew with the man she didn't, in Charlotte Wells' superb and searingly emotional debut film.

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From writer-director Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) comes a unique film starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.

Although Padraic (Farrell) and CoIm (Gleeson) have been lifelong friends, they find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, bringing alarming consequences for both of them.

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Laura (Penelope Cruz) and her children travel from Buenos Aires to the small Spanish village where she was born to attend her sister's wedding. Unexpected events soon lead to a crisis that exposes the family's hidden past.

Suspicions mount, loved ones begin to turn on one another, and dark secrets long hidden threaten to come to light, revealing shocking truths.

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To her friends, Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir) leads a quiet and routine life. But her happy and upbeat exterior hides a secret double life as a committed environmental activist.

Known to others as "The Mountain Woman", she wages a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry to protect the stunning highland landscape that is under threat. Just as she begins planning her biggest and boldest operation yet, she receives an unexpected letter that will change everything. She will be forced to choose between her environmental crusade and the chance of fulfilling her dream of becoming a mother. Funny, moving and utterly unique, 'Woman at War' follows Halla as she juggles the adoption of a beautiful little girl whilst planning her final act of industrial sabotage.

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Inga (Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir) runs a dairy farm with her husband in a remote valley of Iceland where they work long hours for a tight income due to their buyers, a money-grubbing monopoly known as the co-op.

However, when Inga's husband tragically dies she learns her debts are even greater than she thought and takes it upon herself not to repay them but to expose the co-op's greed and corruption by any means necessary.