mervyn-verstellung's - Rented List

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Far into the Colombian mountains, a small farming community is rocked by the arrival of a mysterious young boy.

Their leader, El Senor (Conrado Osorio) claims that the child is the new Messiah, there to save their land, yet his three daughters start to question their father's beliefs when the community starts to dissolve into madness and violence. Is this boy God? The Devil? More importantly, is there a difference? 'Luz: The Flower of Evil' marks the arrival of a stunning new cinematic voice. Juan Diego Escobar Alzate's harrowing yet beautiful take on Good versus Evil is unlike anything that has come before it and is essential viewing for any folk horror, acid western and dark arthouse film aficionados. Brace yourself.

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The 1970s, rural England. Richard (Matt Smith) and Juliette's seemingly idyllic family life is thrown into turmoil when their son starts acting out of character.

At Starve Acre, their remote family home, archaeologist Richard buries himself in exploring a folkloric myth that the ancient oak tree on their land is imbued with phenomenal powers. When Juliette (Morfydd Clark) turns to the local community to find some kind of peace, Richard obsessively digs deeper. An unexpected discovery soon occupies the couple's attention and dark and sinister forces, unwittingly allowed into the home, offer a disturbing possibility of reconnection between them.

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The long-awaited return to fiction filmmaking from Academy Award-winner Andrea Arnold (American Honey, Fish Tank), 'Bird' is a tender, striking and extraordinarily surprising coming-of-age fable about marginalised life in the fringes of contemporary society.

12-year-old Bailey (astounding newcomer Nykiya Adams) lives with her devoted but chaotic single dad Bug (Barry Keoghan) and wayward brother Hunter in a squat in Gravesend, north Kent. Approaching puberty and seeking attention and adventure, Bailey's fractured home life is transformed when she encounters Bird (Franz Rogowski), a mysterious stranger on a journey of his own. A wondrous portrait of the transition from childhood to adolescence that remains grounded in her typically empathetic social realism, Arnold's latest strides to the wildly poetic rhythm of her own drum.

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Horror master Fede Alvarez takes the phenomenally successful 'Alien' franchise back to its iconic roots.

In this truly terrifying sci-fi horror-thriller, a group of young colonisers - scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station - come face-to-face with the most relentless and deadly life form in the universe.

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When the glittering Las Vegas revue 'Le Razzle Dazzle' announces it will soon close, glamorous showgirl Shelly (Pamela Anderson) must reconcile the life she has built as she plans her next act.

With an outstanding ensemble cast that includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Brenda Song, Billie Lourd, and Kiernan Shipka, 'The Last Showgirl' is a joyous tribute to a long-gone Las Vegas - and all the women who made it glitter.

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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.

A clever and relentless thrill ride that defies audience expectation at every turn, in 'Strange Darling', nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer's vicious murder spree.

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Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) and his daughter Hana (Ryô Nishikawa) live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles and order of nature.

One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a glamping site near Takumi's house; offering city residents a comfortable 'escape' to nature. When two company representatives from Tokyo arrive in the village to hold a meeting, it becomes clear that the project will have a negative impact on the local water supply, causing unrest. The agency's mismatched intentions endanger both the ecological balance of the nature plateau and their way of life, with an aftermath that affects Takumi's life deeply.

Sylvia (Anne Raitt) leads a quiet life caring for her sister Hilda (Sarah Stephenson) who has complex care needs. Their lonely suburban existence is accentuated by a social awkwardness that detaches them from the community and fuels a life of seclusion and despair.

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CoIm Bairead's beautifully understated feature debut finds a young girl coming to terms with loss and the importance of family in rural Ireland. Cait (Catherine Clinch), a quiet, neglected young girl, is sent away from her dysfunctional family to live with relatives for the summer.

At first intimidated by her new environment, she quickly blossoms in the care of Eibhlin (Carrie Crowley) and her farmer husband, Sean (Andrew Bennett). As this new home becomes an idyll for her, Cait senses that something is plaguing her new foster parents - an unspoken pain that Eibhlin and Sean never discuss, which Cait's youthful curiosity begins to uncover.

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This beautifully composed drama centres on a middle-aged filmmaker and her mother, who spend a few nights in an old country hotel that holds meaning for them both.

Featuring a towering, deeply moving performance by Tilda Swinton, 'The Eternal Daughters' is an intricately layered piece about motherhood, memory and loss, dressed up as a gothic chiller. Swirling mist, looming shadows, a ghostly presence half-glanced in a window...embracing some of the heightened stylistic flourishes seen in 'The Souvenir Part II', 'The Eternal Daughter' takes Joanna Hogg into exciting new territory, while retaining her distinctive naturalistic signature. The film exists entirely as its own deeply enthralling and moving drama, but fans of the filmmaker's recent work will also find it a puzzle box of metatextual delights.

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Two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant).

Made to choose between belief and disbelief, they find themselves plunged into the darkest labyrinths of Reed's mind and a deadly game of cat-and-mouse in this twisted horror from writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods ("A Quiet Place")

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Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Dev Patel stars as a man with no name, scarred by a brutal childhood, who ekes out a meager living in underground fighting rings.

But when he finds a way to rise up and infiltrate his city's corrupt elite, he kicks off an explosive campaign for retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him as a boy. Channeling the rage of the poor and powerless, an unexpected hero emerges in this fight-filled action epic.

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In 2012, having been lost for over 500 years, the remains of King Richard III (Harry Lloyd) were discovered beneatn a carpark in Leicester.

The search had been orchestrated by an amateur historian, Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins), whose unrelenting research had been met with incomprehension by her friends and family and with scepticism by experts and academics. 'The Lost King' is the life-affirming true story of a woman who refused to be ignored and who took on the country's most eminent historians, forcing them to think again about one of the most controversial kings in England's history.

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Based on the book of the same name by literary powerhouse Ottessa Moshfegh, 'Eileen' follows a peculiar young woman whose dreary life stretches on toward unending misery.

In frigid 1960s Boston, Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) shuffles between her father's dingy, emotionally haunted home and the prison where she works alongside colleagues who have ostracized her. When an intoxicating woman (Anne Hathaway) joins the prison staff, Eileen is taken. Just when the possibility of a salvational friendship (or maybe more) takes hold and forms a singular glimmer in Eileen's darkness, her newfound confidant entangles her in a shocking crime that alters all.