jnk's - Rented List
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Amandla! Examines the pivotal role music played in South Africa's successful struggle to abolish Apartheid and in particular how lyrics and song became part of then political activism within the country. The film also highlights the inspiratonal fight for freedom, where music created an effective underground form of communication within prison boundaries, provided a means of expression and united a nation of oppressed citizens. - Director:
- Lee Hirsch
- Cast:
- Walter Cronkite, Duma Ka Ndlovu, Vusi Mahlasela
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Nowhere in Africa (2001)Nirgendwo in Afrika
A beautifully realised World War II-set love story spanning two continents, Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary true tale of a Jewish family who flee the Nazi regime at the very last moment for a remote farm in Kenya. Torn from her comfortable life in Germany, the shy five-year-old Regina embraces her new life discovering the magic in the wilderness or the sun-burnt African plains and the initially strange African people who live there. Her parents however find it harder to leave their European roots behind and to adjust to the poverty and isolation of their new home. - Director:
- Caroline Link
- Cast:
- Herbert Knaup, Juliane Köhler, Merab Ninidze
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Hotel Salvation (2016)Mukti Bhawan
"Hotel Salvation", the award-winning first feature from up-and-coming director Shubhashish Bhutiani, is a charming, life-affirming drama set in contemporary India that tackles serious matters with a light and often joyous touch. This gently humorous film follows Rajiv (Adil Hussain), an overworked middle-aged son who is forced to accompany his 77-year-old father, Daya (Lalit Behl), as e see s salvation in the holy city of Varanasi. The simple pleasures of this timeless place are explored as the pair belatedly come o now each other in the enforced intimacy of their cramped hotel room and the teeming streets. While rooted in Indian values and culture, 'Hotel Salvation' transcends borders with its themes of family ties, intergenerational relationships and the quest for contentment in later life. - Director:
- Shubhashish Bhutiani
- Cast:
- Adil Hussain, Lalit Behl, Geetanjali Kulkarni
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Based on Bizet's Carmen but relocated to a South African township, U-Carmen is a hugely original piece of film making from director Mark Dornford-May. The film is sung and spoken in Xhosa, and is further evidence of the continuing influx and growing importance of African cinema. Featuring a truly outstanding performance from Pauline Malefane in the title role, the film won the Golden Bear at last year's Berlin Film Festival and has captured the imaginations of critics the world over. - Director:
- Mark Dornford-May
- Cast:
- Pauline Malefane, Andile Tshoni, Lungelwa Blou
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When her mother falls ill under mysterious circumstances, young Eve (Fantine Harduin) is sent to live with her estranged father's wealthy relatives in Calais. But trouble is brewing, as a series of intergenerational back-stabbings threaten to tear the family apart. Meanwhile, distracted by infidelities and betrayals, they fail to notice that their new arrival has a sinister secret of her own. - Director:
- Michael Haneke
- Cast:
- Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu Kassovitz
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After the Storm (2016)Umi yori mo mada fukaku
Author turned private detective, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), struggles to make ends meet as he flitters away all the money he earns on gambling, barely able to pay child support for his son. After his father passes away his mother (Kiki Kirin) seems to have moved on, but family tensions are high with both Ryota and his sister believing each other is taking advantage of their mother. When a typhoon hits, holed-up in his mother's house with his estranged wife and son, Ryota attempts to rekindle his relationships with his family. A sensitive and powerful story of family ties remade, 'After the Storm' stands with the best of Kore-eda's work. - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Hiroshi Abe, Yôko Maki, Satomi Kobayashi
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Chef's Special (2008)Fuera de carta
Javier Camara stars as Chef Maxi, a culinary genius/drama queen with too much on his plate. As if keeping his chic restaurant in the black and wrangling with his wild staff aren't enough, add in a steamy romance with a closeted soccer superstar, sexual competition from gal pal Alex (Lola Duenas) and a tense reunion with his estranged children. - Director:
- Nacho G. Velilla
- Cast:
- Javier Cámara, Lola Dueñas, Fernando Tejero
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The King's Choice (2016)Kongens nei
An award-winning historical drama based on a true story about three dramatic days in 1940, when the King of Norway was presented with an unimaginable ultimatum from the German armed forces: surrender or die. With the German Air force and soldiers hunting them, the Royal Family is forced to flee from the capital - parting ways without knowing if they'll ever see each other again. The Crown Princess Martha (Tuva Novotny) leaves Norway with the children to seek refuge in Sweden, whilst King Haakon (Jesper Christensen) and the Crown Prince Olav (Anders Baasmo Christiansen) stay to fight. After three days of desperately trying to evade the Germans, Haakon makes his final decision; he refuses to capitulate, even if it may cost him, his family and many Norwegians their lives. - Director:
- Erik Poppe
- Cast:
- Jesper Christensen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Karl Markovics
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The Fireman's Ball (1967)Horí, má panenko
In their small-town meeting hall, a maladroit committee of volunteer fire-fighters holds a ball to celebrate the retirement of one of their own, but thanks to poor planning and lack of leadership, the evening quickly devolves into a catastrophe. Nobody can prevent the lottery prizes from being stolen out from under the very noses of those guarding them. A beauty contest turns into an embarrassing farce, and the brigade can't even respond properly to a real fire next door. The Firemen's Ball was Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman's final film in his home country; he was scouting locations in Paris when the Russians moved their tanks into Prague in 1968 causing Forman to decide to remain an expatriate. - Director:
- Milos Forman
- Cast:
- Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebánek, Josef Valnoha
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Dawn of the Dead (2012)Grateful Dead: Dawn of the Dead: The Grateful Dead and The Rise of the San Francisco Underground
In the mid-1960's a new twist on contemporary rock music emerged out of San Francisco. Known as 'psychedelia', it was pioneered by a close-knit community of local bands who merged traditional American forms such as folk, country, blues and rock and roll with new sounds - often developed under the influence of psychoactive drugs. Bound up with the social and cultural changes for which San Francisco was also the focal point, it was a combination that made for a radical re-imaging of youth culture. This film traces the movements, events and sounds of those heady days, and traces the story of the definitive band of the psychedelic age, The Grateful Dead. Covering too the involvement of Frisco's other lead players such as Big Brother and The Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, The Charlatans and Quicksilver Messenger Service, the program explores what it was that, temporarily, set San Francisco aside as a 1960's Shangri-La. Featuring brand new interviews with Grateful Dread manager Rock Scully; the Dead's experimental pioneer, Tom 'T.C.' Constanten; Big Brother's Peter Albin; Mike Willhelm from The Charlatans; publicist and official Dead biographer, Dennis McNally; GD author, journalist and DJ (host to this day of 'The Grateful Dead Hour'), David Gans; Merry Prankster and Ken Kesey collaborator, Ken Babbs, plus comment, criticism and review from Rolling Stone's Anthony De Curtis, Village Voice's Robert Christgau and Mojo's Ritchie Unterberger. Also including the rarest archive in existence, live and studio footage of Grateful Dead and the other Frisco bands, vintage interviews, location shoots, news reports plus the music that sound-tracked the entire movement, which all together make for the most detailed overview yet of the social upheaval on America's West Coast which ultimately changed the world forever. - Director:
- Elio Espana
- Cast:
- The Grateful Dead, Thomas Arnold, Rock Scully
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Love and Other Cults (2017)Kemonomich / Love and Other Beasts
Based on an unbelievable true story director Eiji Uchida (Greatful Dead) tells the tale of a young girl named Ai (Sairi Ito) who at a young age is sent to a cult commune by her religious maniac mother. After the cult is exposed by the police, Ai starts a new stage of life, trying to start attending school for the first time, but ends up living with a rock-bottom delinquent family full of gangsters and call girls. Searching for a different life she finds herself adopted by a "normal" family, but her troubled life continues to follow her into more seedy paths including the sex industry. The only person who understands Ai and her troubles is another cast off from society, Ryota (Kenta Suga), whose love for her brings him along the same dark paths. - Director:
- Eiji Uchida
- Cast:
- Sairi Itô, Kenta Suga, Kaito Yoshimura
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Both instalments of the 'epic comedy of absurd proportions' about the dubious benefits of Western civilisation.
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)For five thousand years, things have pretty much stayed the same for Xi (N!xau) and his fellow Bushmen. Then one day, an empty Coke bottle drops magically from the sky, and life goes topsy turvy in the face of this generous 'gift of the Gods'. An international sensation, 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' is one of the most original and thought provoking comedies ever. Starring a real-life Bushman N!xau, it's a movie that looks at us from the other side - and shows us just how crazy we are!
The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)
This delightful sequel to the hilarious hit comedy is a piece of divinity inspired lunacy! Xi again collides with the so-called civilized world when he embarks on a search for his children, who are accidental stowaways on a poacher's truck. He soon crosses their path with two very odd couples lost in the desert. Xi, perplexed by their strange antics, nevertheless finds himself drawn into a crazy adventure with people who know how to make magic machines...but constantly need to be saved from the wilderness and from each other.- Director:
- Jamie Uys
- Cast:
- Marius Weyers, Graham Armitage, Sandra Prinsloo
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The Party and the Guests (1966)O slavnosti a hostech / A Report on the Party and Guests
A group of friends enjoying a bucolic day in the country are accosted by mysterious figures who compel them to join an unexplained lavish banquet. A barbed satire of authoritarianism and conformity unfolds, as each new guest finds their place amongst the revellers, succumbing to the will of their menacing hosts. Jan Nemec's surreal and sinister fable was considered one of the most politically dangerous films of its era. Made during the short flowering of the Czech New Wave in the 1960's, it was subsequently 'banned forever' by the authorities. - Director:
- Jan Nemec
- Cast:
- Ivan Vyskocil, Jan Klusák, Jiri Nemec
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Kolya (1996)Kolja
Louka, a middle-aged Czech cellist, is a skirt-chasing bachelor who enjoys a lifestyle free of responsibilities. When he finds himself strapped for cash, he agrees to a marriage of convenience. But after his new bride skips town, Louka is left to father her five-year-old Russian son, Kolya. Neither could be more unhappy with their predicament, especially since they don't even speak the same language. It'll take time and patience for the cultural barrier between this unlikely father-son duo to fall, but when it does, an unbreakable bond forms in its place. - Director:
- Jan Sverák
- Cast:
- Zdenek Sverák, Andrei Chalimon, Libuse Safránková
- Formats:
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Insyriated (2017)In Syria
Trapped inside her house in a city under siege, a mother of three Oum Yazan (Hiam Abbass) turns her flat into a safe fortress for her family and neighbours in an attempt to protect them from the war outside. But when bombs threaten to destroy the building, snipers turn the courtyards into death traps and burglars are scouring buildings for places to loot, maintaining the thin visage of routine inside the walls becomes a matter of life and death. - Director:
- Philippe Van Leeuw
- Cast:
- Hiam Abbass, Diamand Bou Abboud, Juliette Navis
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