beth's - Rented List

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"Breathing" is the inspiring story of a young man who must find resolution with his past in order to take the next step into his adult life. Abandoned by his mother as a young child, Roman Kogler (Thomas Schubert), now 19 years old, is serving time in a juvenile detention centre in Vienna.

When threatened with a life behind bars unless he finds probation work, he takes an unexpected job that slowly encourages him to adjust to the outside world. Whilst at work he makes a startling discovery that triggers him to track down his mother and address the unanswered questions surrounding his childhood. Confronting his past enables Roman to finally come up for air and start the next chapter of his life.

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In 1970s France Delphine (Izia Higelin) moves from her rural roots to Paris where she meets Carole (Cecile de France), an activist involved in the stirrings of the feminist movement, and they become involved in an all-consuming romance.

However, when Delphine has to return home after her father's stroke, the couple find it difficult to square this new life with the less liberal attitude of the village and Delphine's family.

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Based on the best selling novel, The Meanest Man In Texas tells the incredible story of Clyde Thompson, accused of multiple murder and sentenced to death in a Texas prison.

After his conviction in 1928, Thompson is incarcerated in a high security prison but while waiting for an appeal hearing, he gets involved in an escape plan and more murders, leading to another death sentence. This is an astonishing true story about one man's courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

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It's the beginning of summer in a small village in northern Turkey. Lale and her four sisters are on their way home from school, innocently playing with local boys but prying village eyes view their games with suspicion and word soon reaches their family.

Their home consequently becomes a prison at the hand of their uncompromising uncle and all the girls have to now live for is a future of arranged marriage. But these girls' rebellious streak will not be tamed so easily. Drawing vocal support from critics, festivals and audiences across the globe, this beautiful debut from director Deniz Gamze Erguven is a touching portrayal of innocent strength and resilience against modern misogyny.

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Circus saxophonist Vladimir Ivanoff (Robin Williams) suddenly defects from his touring troupe in that "temple of Western decadence" - Bloomingdale's. Fleeing the K.G.B., Vladimir wins asylum and moves into the crowded Harlem flat of black security guard Lionel Witherspoon (Cleavant Derricks).

Soon he has found both a voluptuous Italian lover Lucia Lombardo (Maria Conchita Alonso), and a shrewd Cuban lawyer Orlando Ramirez (Alejandro Rey). Though Vladimir learns that life in America can be cold and even painful, he grows to love this strange and wondrous new land.

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Set in the starkly beautiful winter landscape of rural Quebec, 'Curling' portrays the strange lives of taciturn loner Jean-Francois (Emmanuel Bilodeau) and his daughter Julyvonne (Philomène Bilodeau), who he insists should never leave their home.

Their isolation, and the fragile balance of their relationship, is jeopardised by Julyvonne's encroaching adolescence and the troubling secrets they both carry. Haunting, enigmatic and at times menacing, the film is a meditation on the universal need for human connection.

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'People of the Mountains' is set in a remote Transylvanian community where a woodcutter lives with his young family, working the high mountain forests.

Beginning as a lyrical portrait of a long-vanished way of life, the story gives way to the catastrophic impact of industrialisation on the community and the tragedies which follow in its wake. Istvan Szots has been compared to Ford, Dovzhenko and Renoir but this film, shot almost entirely on location and using mostly non-professional actors, was also cited by De Sica and Zavattini as a model for the Italian neorealist movement of the 1940s. Disapproved of by the ruling authorities, the reputation of this powerful and elemental film has continued to grow and it is now considered one of the greatest Hungarian films of all time.

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A Japanese box-office sensation in 1968, Kuroneko is a sparse, atmospheric horror story, adhering to Kaneto Shindo's philosophy of using beauty and purity to evoke emotion.

Eccentric and more overtly supernatural than its breakthrough companion piece, Onibaba (1964), Kuroneko revisits similar themes to reveal a haunting meditation on duty, conformity and love. In this magnificently eerie and romantic film - loosely based on the Japanese folktale The Cat's Return - a mother and daughter-in-law (Nobuko Otowa and Kiwako Taichi) are raped and murdered by pillagers, but return from the dead as vampiric cat spirits intent on revenge. As the ghosts lure soldiers into the bamboo groves, a fearless samurai, Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura), is sent to stop their reign of terror.

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The poet John Clare's escape from Epping Forest; an epic march through hunger and madness, is an English journey to set beside "A Pilgrim's Progress". Toby Jones, lain Sinclair and a Straw Bear follow in his footsteps exactly 150 years after his death. En route they bump into Macgillivray, Dr.

Simon Kovesi and the wizard Alan Moore, their progress narrated by Toby's father Freddie, a maverick actor who featured in numerous David Lynch films. Captured in lustrous black and white photography, they discover the only truth of the road; whatever our hopes and delusions, we are always 'By Our Selves'.

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Billie's journey to independence starts with the news that her mum is going to transition and live her life as a man. Although Billie is asked to move in with her father, they decide that every Tuesday will be a sacred space between mother and daughter.

Taking advantage of her newfound freedom, Billie begins to secretly experiment with two older school friends on the one thing she can't work out - sex. Both Billie and her mother soon realise that without being totally transparent they will not be able to get what they need.

Still scarred by the trauma he endured as a child at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) faces the ghosts of the past when he meets Abra (Kyliegh Curran), a courageous teen who desperately needs his help - and who possesses a powerful extrasensory ability called the "shine".

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When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate.

From Harlan's dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan's untimely death.

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For Shirin (Desiree Akhavan), being part of a perfect family isn't easy. Acceptance eludes her from all sides: her family doesn't know she's bisexual, and her ex-girlfriend, Maxine (Rebecca Henderson), can't understand why she doesn't tell them.

Even the six-year-old boys in her moviemaking class are too ADD to focus on her for more than a second. Following a family announcement of her brother's betrothal to a parentally approved Iranian prize catch, Shirin embarks on a private rebellion involving a series of escapades, while trying to decipher what went wrong with Maxine.

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Kept locked inside the house by her father, 7-year-old Chloe (Lexy Kolker) lives in fear and fascination of the outside world, where Abnormals create a constant threat - or so she believes.

When a mysterious stranger offers her a glimpse of what's really happening outside, Chloe soon finds that while the truth isn't so simple, the danger is very real.

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Oscar and Golden Globe nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, "Tangerines" is a powerful and eloquent plea for peace and a poignant statement on the futility of violence stemming from racial and ethnic divisions.

Set in 1992, during the growing conflict between Georgia and Abkhazian separatists in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution, this compassionate story focuses on two Estonian immigrant farmers who refuse to flee Georgia, staying on to harvest their tangerine crop. When the fighting arrives on his doorstep, Ivo treats two wounded soldiers from opposite sides. During their extended period of convalescence under Ivo's roof, the enemies are forced not only to confront the reasons that fuel their hatred for each other, but also the conflict which rages around them.