hpb's - Rented List
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Couscous (2007)La graine et le mulet
This internationally acclaimed, warm and entertaining family drama tells the story of Slimane, a sixty-something North African immigrant who has just been laid off after a lifetime's toil at a shipyard in the French Mediterranean port of Sete. Against considerable odds, Slimane determines to realise his long-held dream of opening a couscous restaurant, but to do so must rally the support of his extended family including his ex-wife, children, mistress and her hot-headed daughter. Eventually the make-or-break opening night arrives and the scene is set for a dramatic and nail-bitingly tense finale. Featuring some of the most mouthwatering scenes of food and feasting ever committed to celluloid, this superbly performed, intimate and vividly realised film is an engrossing tale of hope, cultural identity and familial rivalries. - Director:
- Abdellatif Kechiche
- Cast:
- Habib Boufares, Hafsia Herzi, Farida Benkhetache
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In a cheap Parisian hotel room Oscar Wilde lies on his death bed and the past floods back. Under the microscope of demise he reviews the flailed attempt to reconcile with his wife Constance, the ensuing reprisal of his fatal love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas and the warmth and devotion of Robbie Ross who tried and foiled to save him from himself. From Dieppe to Naples to Paris, freedom is elusive and Oscar is a penniless vagabond, always moving on, shunned by his old acquaintances, but revered by a strange group of outlaws and urchins to whom he tells the old stories - his incomparable wit still sharp. - Director:
- Rupert Everett
- Cast:
- Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Emily Watson
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The Third Murder (2017)Sandome no satsujin
Leading attorney Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) takes on the defence of murder-robbery suspect Misumi (Koji Yakusho) who served prison time for another murder 30 years ago. Shigemori's chances of winning the case seem low - his client freely admits his guilt, despite facing the death penalty if he is convicted. As he digs deeper into the case and hears the testimonies of the victim's family and Misumi himself, the once confident Shigemori begins to doubt whether his client is the murderer after all. - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Masaharu Fukuyama, Kôji Yakusho, Shin'nosuke Mitsushima
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Winter Sleep (2014)Kis Uykusu
The 2014 Cannes Palme d'Or winner from Nuri Bilge Ceylan is set in the hilly landscape of Cappadocia in Central Anatolia. A former actor, Aydin (Haluk Bilginer), owns a small hotel cut into the hillside, which he runs with his younger wife Nihal (Melisa Sozen). He has also inherited local properties, but leaves the business of rent collection to his agent. When a local boy, resentful of his father's humiliation by Aydin's agent, throws a stone at a jeep whilst Aydin and his agent are driving in it, Aydin ducks out of any responsibility or involvement. As the film progresses, the cocoon in which this self-satisfied man has wrapped himself is gradually unravelled. In a series of magnificent set-pieces, Aydin is exposed in his encounters with his wife, sister, and the family of the stone-throwing boy. He is finally brought face-to-face with who he truly is. - Director:
- Nuri Bilge Ceylan
- Cast:
- Haluk Bilginer, Melisa Sözen, Demet Akbag
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Set fifty years apart, Ben (Oakes Fegley) and Rose (Millicent Simmonds) are children from two different eras who both secretly wish their lives were different. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his home and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out on quests to find what they are missing that unfold with mesmerizing symmetry. - Director:
- Todd Haynes
- Cast:
- Millicent Simmonds, Julianne Moore, Cory Michael Smith
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Maxine Peake stars as the Funny Cow, a female comedian who rises to stardom on the male-dominated stand-up comedy circuit of the North of England in the 1970's and 80's. From her troubled childhood to her turbulent adult relationships, the Funny Cow uses the raw material of her life experiences to bring her unique style of comedy to the stage. - Director:
- Adrian Shergold
- Cast:
- Maxine Peake, Paddy Considine, Stephen Graham
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Christian (Claes Bang), a respected curator of a contemporary art museum in Stockholm, is gearing up to launch a new show, 'The Square', a daring installation examining altruism and our duty to help others. However, Christian's own views on social responsibility are put to the test when he becomes the victim of scam, forcing him to question the world around him and his place in it. - Director:
- Ruben Östlund
- Cast:
- Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West
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After tragedy forces young Prince T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) to assume Wakanda's throne, he is faced with the ultimate test, putting the fate of his country and the entire world at risk. Pitted against his own family, the new king must rally his allies and release the full power of Black Panther to defeat his foes and embrace his future as an Avenger. - Director:
- Ryan Coogler
- Cast:
- Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o
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Loveless (2017)Nelyubov
Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and Boris (Aleksey Rozin) are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page - even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha (Matvey Novikov). Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears. - Director:
- Andrey Zvyagintsev
- Cast:
- Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin
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L'Amant Double (2017)Double Lover
Marine Vacth (Jeune et Jolie) plays Chloé, a young woman who falls in love with her psychoanalyst Paul (Jérémie Renier). When they decide to move in together, everything seems perfect until a series of discoveries lead her to believe that he may be living a double life. As she searches for the truth, Chloé's investigations plunge her into a dark and bewildering world of smoke, mirrors and doppelgangers where nothing is as it seems, and no one can be trusted. - Director:
- François Ozon
- Cast:
- Marine Vacth, Pascal Aubert, Jérémie Renier
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'Wadjda' is the story of a young Saudi girl whose burning desire for a bicycle leads her into bold defiance of her society's restrictive codes of gender and religion. After a fight with her friend Abdullah, a neighborhood boy she shouldn't be playing with, Wadjda sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale. She wants the bicycle desperately so that she can beat Abdullah in a race. But Wadjda's mother won't allow it, fearing repercussions from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl's virtue. Wadjda decides to try and raise the money herself. Although her cunning plans are continuously thwarted, she is determined to continue fighting for her dreams... - Director:
- Haifaa Al-Mansour
- Cast:
- Waad Mohammed, Reem Abdullah, Abdullrahman Al Gohani
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As three civil rights activists drive down a desolate stretch of highway, headlights ominously draw near. Telling each other to stay calm, they have no way of knowing that in minutes they will disappear into the night and spark one of the most explosive murder investigations in history. Enter straight-laced Ward (Willem Dafoe) and deceptively easy-going Anderson (Gene Hackman). Can these two philosophically opposed FBI agents overcome their differences and uncover the chilling mystery of a small Ku Klux Klan - ridden community before an entire town is torn apart by racism? - Director:
- Alan Parker
- Cast:
- Gene Hackman, Jack Buck, Willem Dafoe
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Young and Beautiful (2013)Jeune and Jolie
Whilst on holiday with her family, seventeen year old Isabelle (Marine Vacth) experiences her first sexual relationship with an attractive young man. A few days later, and for no apparent reason, Isabelle casts him aside and behaves as if their encounter never happened. When she returns home to Paris, Isabelle begins a dangerous new career; she sets up a profile on an escort website and lies about her age in order to make appointments with older, wealthy clients in chic, expensive hotel rooms. On one hand she is a cool professional, catering to the sexual whims of the various men she encounters; on the other she is maintaining the illusion of being a regular school student for her parents and friends. However her double life spirals out of control, and she is forced to deal with the consequences of what she has been doing. - Director:
- François Ozon
- Cast:
- Marine Vacth, Géraldine Pailhas, Frédéric Pierrot
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Graduation (2016)Bacalaureat / Recycling Feelings
Romeo (Adrian Titieni), a physician living in a small mountain town in Transylvania, has raised his daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) with the idea that once she turns 18, she will leave to study abroad in the UK. But on the day before Eliza's first entrance exam to university, she is assaulted in an attack which threatens to jeopardise her entire future. Now Romeo has a decision to make: there are ways of solving her predicament, but not without betraying the moral principles that he, as a father, has taught Eliza throughout her life. - Director:
- Cristian Mungiu
- Cast:
- Adrian Titieni, Ioana Chitu, Maria-Victoria Dragus
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Thelma (2017)Telma
Thelma (Eili Harboe) has just left her religious family to study at a university in Oslo. A sudden bout of violent seizures coincides with her growing affections for fellow student Anja (Kaya Wilkins), who reciprocates Thelma's attraction. As it becomes clear that the seizures are symptoms of mysterious and dangerous psychological abilities, Thelma is confronted with secrets from her past and the terrifying implications of her newfound powers. - Director:
- Joachim Trier
- Cast:
- Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen
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