mwdw's - Rented List
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The Great Beauty (2013)La Grande Bellezza
Jep Gambardella, a 65-year-old journalist and once promising novelist, lives his easy life among Rome's decadent high society in a swirl of rooftop parties and late-night soirees. But when he learns of the death of his friend's wife - a woman he once loved as an 18-year-old - his life is thrown into perspective and he begins to see the world through new eyes... - Director:
- Paolo Sorrentino
- Cast:
- Toni Servillo, Christine Aubry, Carlo Verdone
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Tabu (2012)Tabou
One of the most critically acclaimed films of the year, 'Tabu' is a diptych starting off in present day Lisbon where Teresa Madruga gives a luminous performance as Pilar, a woman concerned about her neighbour Aurora's eccentricities. Finally Pilar meets Gian Luca, a figure from Aurora's past. He starts his story and the film jumps back in time to colonial Africa, where he and Aurora had a passionate love-affair. This second part is made as a quasi-silent film, with no dialogue, just music and voice-over. Former film critic Miguel Gomes both uses and slyly comments on all the techniques of cinema to make a truly virtuoso film. With a soundtrack that ranges from Lisztian piano music to cover versions of Phil Spector. 'Tabu' is just a delight. Not to mention the sad and melancholy crocodile... - Director:
- Miguel Gomes
- Cast:
- Telmo Churro, Hortêncílio Aquina, Américo Mota
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The Quiet Girl (2022)An Cailín Ciúin
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. - Director:
- Colm Bairéad
- Cast:
- Catherine Clinch, Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett
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il buco (2021)The Hole / Il Buco
During the economic boom of the 1960s, Europe's highest building is being built in Italy's prosperous North. At the other end of the country, young cavers explore Europe's deepest cave in the untouched Calabrian hinterland. The bottom of the Bifurto Abyss, 700 metres below Earth, is reached for the first time. The intruders' venture goes unnoticed by the inhabitants of a small neighbouring village, but not by the old shepherd of the Pollino plateau whose solitary life begins to interweave with the group's journey. 'il Buco' chronicles a visit to the depths of life and nature and parallels two great voyages to the interior. - Director:
- Michelangelo Frammartino
- Cast:
- Claudia Candusso, Paolo Cossi, Mila Costi
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Based on the internationally bestselling novel by Ferdinand Von Schirach 'The Collini Case' is a masterful court room drama carefully exposing and laying bare the sins of the past. Fabrizio Collini (Franco Nero) is accused, without any apparent motive, of murdering the respected industrial magnate Hans Meyer (Manfred Zapatka). For Caspar, (Elyas M'Barek) accepting this as his first case as defence counsel would propel his career exponentially. But the victim was not only the grandfather of his childhood sweetheart but also a mentor and father figure to him in his youth. As Caspar delves deeper, he unravels the dark secret past of the family. He soon discovers a scandalous law that shakes the legal justice system to its core, turning it into one of Germany's most high-profile cases of the century. - Director:
- Marco Kreuzpaintner
- Cast:
- Elyas M'Barek, Alexandra Maria Lara, Heiner Lauterbach
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Nitram (Caleb Landry Jones) lives with his mother (Judy Davis) and father (Anthony LaPaglia) in suburban Australia in the mid 1990s. He lives a life of isolation and frustration at never being able to fit in. That is until he unexpectedly finds a close friend in a reclusive heiress, Helen (Essie Davis). However when that relationship meets its tragic end, and Nitram's loneliness and anger grow, he begins a slow descent that leads to disaster. - Director:
- Justin Kurzel
- Cast:
- Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis, Anthony LaPaglia
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The Outfit is a gripping and masterful thriller in which an expert tailor (Mark Rylance) must outwit a dangerous group of mobsters in order to survive a fateful night.
- Director:
- Graham Moore
- Cast:
- Zoey Deutch, Dylan O'Brien, Mark Rylance
- Formats:
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Compartment No. 6 (2022)Hytti nro 6 / Compartment Number 6
Young Finnish archaeology student Laura (Seidi Haarla) is convinced by her lecturer - and lover - to take a trip to an ancient site of petroglyphs near the Arctic Circle. However, when she boards the long-distance train to take her there, she finds that she has to share her carriage with the boorish and belligerent Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov), a foul-mouthed, misogynistic drunk travelling to his new job as a miner. Initially, they seem to have nothing in common, but, like the landscape they're travelling through, the more time Laura spends with Ljoha the more he thaws, revealing an unforeseen kindness beneath the macho facade. This chance meeting between the two occupants of compartment no.6 brings about an awakening within them, forming a bond they will never forget. - Director:
- Juho Kuosmanen
- Cast:
- Yuriy Borisov, Valeriy Nikolaev, Seidi Haarla
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There is a philosophical theory that we should be born with a small amount of alcohol in our blood; that modest inebriation opens our minds to the world around us diminishing problems and increasing creativity. Intrigued Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) and three of his friends all weary high school teachers, embark on a risky experiment to maintain a constant level of intoxication throughout the workday. Initial results are positive, but as the units are knocked back and stakes are raised, it becomes increasingly clear that some bold acts carry severe consequences. - Director:
- Thomas Vinterberg
- Cast:
- Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang
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Happening (2021)L'événement
France, 1963. Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) is a bright young student with a promising future ahead of her. But when she falls pregnant, she sees the opportunity to finish her studies and escape the constraints of her social background disappearing. With her final exams fast approaching and her pregnancy progressing, Anne resolves to act, even if she has to confront shame and pain, even if she must risk prison to do so. - Director:
- Audrey Diwan
- Cast:
- Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet Klein, Luàna Bajrami
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The Audition (2019)Das Vorspiel
Alexander (Ilja Monti) auditions at a prestigious Berlin music school. The vote is split, but Anna Bronsky (Nina Hoss) insists she can train him. Her obsessive quest begins to draw out of him the unique sound she believes he possessed in his audition. However, Alexander does not respond well to her increasingly strict and regimented approach. She is also invited to join a quintet, but is reluctant to perform in concert and her eventual participation leads to an exceptionally embarrassing experience. Anna is pushed over the edge and doubles down on Alexander. Come the day of his exam, events take a tragic turn. - Director:
- Ina Weisse
- Cast:
- Nina Hoss, Sophie Rois, Thorsten Merten
- Formats:
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The Damned (1969)La Caduta degli dei / Luchino Visconti's the Damned
The most savagely subversive film by the iconoclastic auteur Luchino Visconti employs the mechanics of deliriously stylized melodrama to portray Nazism's total corruption of the soul. In the wake of Hitler's ascent to power, the wealthy industrialist von Essenbeck family and their associates - including the scheming social climber Friedrich (Dirk Bogarde), the conniving matriarch Sophie (Ingrid Thulin), and the cruelly deviant heir Martin (Helmut Berger) - descend into a self-destructive spiral of decadence, greed, perversion, and allconsuming hatred as they vie for power, over the family business and over one another. - Director:
- Luchino Visconti
- Cast:
- Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Thulin, Helmut Griem
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True Things (2021)True Things About Me
Bored by the daily tedium of her office job, Kate (Ruth Wilson) is sleepwalking through life when a chance sexual encounter with a charismatic stranger (Tom Burke) awakens her. High on infatuation and the exhilaration of this new relationship, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to this mysterious new man. Hoping he will provide the escape she so desperately desires, she embarks on an emotionally dangerous journey that slowly begins to consume her. With a cast that also includes Hayley Squires, 'True Things' is the unmissable new film from acclaimed director Harry Wootliff. - Director:
- Harry Wootliff
- Cast:
- Ruth Wilson, Tom Burke, Hayley Squires
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Multi-award-winning and hailed as one of the finest films of recent years, Pedro Costa's exquisite 'Vitalina Varela' follows the titular Vitalina, a woman left behind in Cape Verde when her husband leaves to find work in Portugal. Years later, she finally makes the journey to Lisbon herself but arrives three days after his funeral. Alone and isolated in her late husband's home, Vitalina is determined to persevere and confront the ghosts of the past. Haunting, strikingly visualised and marked by a towering central performance, 'Vitalina Varela' is an unforgettable modern masterwork. - Director:
- Pedro Costa
- Cast:
- Vitalina Varela, Ventura, Manuel Tavares Almeida
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I Never Cry (2020)Jak najdalej stad
Seventeen-year-old Ola (Zofia Stafiej) travels to Ireland to bring her father's body back to Poland after he died working on a construction site. But never mind her dad, Ola wants to know if he saved money for the car he had promised. In a foreign country all by herself, Ola will have the trip of her lifetime, a journey into the unknown, on which she will try to reconnect with her estranged father. In Ireland, she will come to know a different world and meet people who will change her approach to life. - Director:
- Piotr Domalewski
- Cast:
- Zofia Stafiej, Kinga Preis, Arkadiusz Jakubik
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