jnk's - Rented List
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The Wonders (2014)Le Meraviglie
Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, director Alice Rohrwacher's film is a beautiful and bittersweet love letter to the disappearing traditions of rural Italy. On her family's farm in the quiet and beautiful Italian countryside, twelve-year-old Gelsomina divides her time between watching out for her sisters and helping her father with his bee-keeping. One day their peaceful existence is interrupted when television competition 'Countryside Wonders' and its glamorous host (Monica Bellucci) arrive, offering tantalising rewards for the most traditionally-ltalian produce. Gelsomina is eager to enter the family and their pure golden honey, but faces resistance from her father who is more concerned with the bureaucracy threatening to derail their family business. - Director:
- Alice Rohrwacher
- Cast:
- Alba Rohrwacher, Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck
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Love Is in the Air (2013)Amour and Turbulences
On a flight from New York to Paris, where she is due to get married, beautiful Julia (Ludivine Sagnier) finds herself sitting next to Antoine (Nicolas Bedos), a charming hedonist she fell in love with three years ago. While Julia tries to avoid contact for seven hours and Antoine plots ways of winning her back, we travel in time to revisit the stages of their love affair from first encounter to breakup - so many extravagantly romantic and deliciously caustic scenes that make this the most compelling journey of their lives. - Director:
- Alexandre Castagnetti
- Cast:
- Ludivine Sagnier, Nicolas Bedos, Jonathan Cohen
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Goodbye Lenin! (2003)Good Bye Lenin!
The year is 1989 and East and West Germany are still divided. Alex (Daniel Brhl) and his sister Ariane (Maria Simon) live in East Germany with their single mother, Christiane (Katrin Sass) who is a staunch Socialist. When Alex's mother witnesses his arrest on a protest march, she suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma for eight months, just enough time for the Berlin wall to come tumbling down along with all of East Germany's ideals. Eight months later, Christiane wakes up and things have changed. The doctors warn Alex that any shock could bring on a fatal heart attack. He then realises he must convince his mother that her beloved Communism has not been overthrown but is in fact triumphing over Capitalism. Alex then sets out to recreate every detail of the old East inside the four walls of their tiny council flat... what begins as a little white lie, soon turns into a major deception! - Director:
- Wolfgang Becker
- Cast:
- Daniel Brühl, Andreas Thieck, Katrin Sass
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Bed and Breakfast (2003)Bienvenue au gîte
Anyone who has ever dreamed of running their own B&B or better still owning a holiday home in the South of France should watch this film. Caroline and Bertrand make the break and escape high powered city jobs to fulfil their dream of running a Bed & Breakfast. The house that they have purchased couldn't be more idyllically placed nestled in a valley filled with beauty and splendid isolation. The dream, however is soon turned on it's head. The upmarket clientele envisioned by Caroline turn out to be quite the opposite but provide for a summer of fun and awkward moments, from boy scouts to meditating hippies not to mention illicit love affairs and naturists. All applications of city micromanaging serve to exacerbate Caroline's problems rather than solve them. Meanwhile, Bertrand, away from Paris takes to the open air and wild expanse of the countryside and village life with great enthusiasm but soon adds to Caroline's concerns when he befriends and parties with a gay couple who have converted their town house into a beautiful boutique B&B with fountains, swimming pools marble floors and sheer opulence. With their relationship at near breaking point Caroline sets out to win over the village (most of whom she's managed to alienate) by organising the millennial anniversary celebrations. Not having gone the way she would have liked Caroline packs her things and returns to Paris leaving Bertrand behind..... - Director:
- Claude Duty
- Cast:
- Marina Foïs, Philippe Harel, Annie Grégorio
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Exhilarating and astonishingly ambitious, "Victoria" is an adrenaline-fuelled heist thriller set on the streets of nighttime Berlin that features the staggering technical feat of being shot in a single, unbroken take. Victoria, a young woman from Madrid, meets four local guys outside a nightclub in the early hours of the morning. Sonne and his friends are Berliners who promise to show her the real side of the city. But when the group are suddenly forced to repay a debt to a member of the city's criminal underworld, the night quickly spirals out of control. - Director:
- Sebastian Schipper
- Cast:
- Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski
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Love and Peace (2015)Rabu & Pîsu
For shy and awkward Ryoichi, dreams of musical superstardom have long since faded and he's resigned himself to a lifetime of unrewarding office work for a company that barely acknowledges his existence. But when he randomly buys a pet turtle named Pikadon, a series of events are put into place that not only give Ryoichi the chance to fulfil his rock and roll fantasies, they might just bring about the end of the world. With more imagination in the first ten minutes than most films can boast in their entire running time, Love and Peace is pure Sono: a bonkers and uproarious one-of-a-kind that simply has to be seen to be believed. - Director:
- Sion Sono
- Cast:
- Kumiko Asô, Motoki Fukami, Suidôbashi Hakase
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Little Nicholas (2009)Le petit Nicolas
Family comedy based on the best-selling books chronicling the adventures of Nicolas, a mischievous French schoolboy. When Nicolas overhears his parents talking about a new arrival, he knows it can only mean one thing - a baby! Convinced they are making plans to abandon him in the forest to make room for his sibling, he enlists the help of his fellow classmates to make sure he will survive. - Director:
- Laurent Tirard
- Cast:
- Maxime Godart, Valérie Lemercier, Kad Merad
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Rams (2015)Hrútar
In a secluded valley in Iceland, brothers Gummi and Kiddi live side by side, tending to their prized ancestral sheep. But a long-term grudge means that they haven't spoken to each other for four decades, passing messages via the sheep dog. When a lethal ovine disease suddenly appears in the valley, the authorities move in to cull all of the livestock. But Gummi and Kiddi don't give up easily and each brother tries to stave off the disaster in his own fashion: Kiddi by using his rifle, and Gummi by using his wits. As the authorities close in the brothers will need to come together to save the sheep - and themselves - from extinction. - Director:
- Grímur Hákonarson
- Cast:
- Sigurður Sigurjónsson, Theodór Júlíusson, Charlotte Bøving
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Sleepless Night (2011)Nuit Blanche
Vincent (Tomer Sisley) is a cop with connections to a vicious criminal underworld. He and his partner steal a batch of cocaine from a powerful drug baron, but Vincent is identified in the heist. The gangsters kidnap Vincent's son to hold him hostage until he returns their stolen goods, but he no longer has them. - Director:
- Frédéric Jardin
- Cast:
- Tomer Sisley, Serge Riaboukine, Julien Boisselier
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Gueros (2014)Güeros
'Gueros' is a road movie in which the slacker travellers barely manage to leave town. It's 1999. Fede and Santos are currently striking against the strike which their fellow-students are organising at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. They are joined by younger brother Tomas who has brought a cassette containing the music of Epigmenio Cruz. They say his songs moved Bob Dylan to tears. When the trio learns that their idol is in hospital fading fast and alone, they set off in their rusty heap of a car to pay their last respects to this one-time rock star. What they thought would be a simple trip to find their childhood idol, soon becomes a voyage of self-discovery across Mexico City's invisible frontiers. - Director:
- Alonso Ruizpalacios
- Cast:
- Tenoch Huerta, Sebastián Aguirre, Ilse Salas
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Belle and Sebastian (2013)Belle et Sébastien
High up in the Alps and far away from the fighting of the Second World War, a small, peaceful village is home to a young boy named Sebastian. Sebastian is an orphan and life on the mountains is dangerous for a young boy. But he soon meets Belle, a wild dog who has a heart of gold. Sebastian tames Belle and they form an unshakable friendship. However, Belle and Sebastian's peaceful mountain village is soon under threat. Their village is close to the border of Switzerland, and the Germans want to occupy the area to stop resistance fighters from escaping the country. It's up to young Sebastian and his trusty canine to foil the German's plans and bring peace back to their home! - Director:
- Nicolas Vanier
- Cast:
- Félix Bossuet, Tchéky Karyo, Margaux Châtelier
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Summer in the GDR, 1980. Barbara, a young doctor, is exiled to a provincial hospital, seemingly punished for attempting to leave East Germany. Confined to a claustrophobic small town and under a constant veil of suspicion, she befriends no one, waiting patiently for the opportunity to resume her mission. When her new boss appears to confide in Barbara, she is thrown. Hers is a life in which the fear of surveillance is embedded in all personal relationships, and she doesn't know who to trust. Why has he covered for her and one of her patients? Torn between her instinct and her duty, the characteristically hyper-controlled Barbara begins to lose her grip on herself, her obligations and her heart. - Director:
- Christian Petzold
- Cast:
- Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Rainer Bock
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Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (2008)Welcome to the Sticks
Although living a comfortable life in Salon-de-Provence, a charming town in the South of France, Julie (Zoé Félix) has been feeling depressed for a while. To please her, Philippe Abrams (Kad Merad), a post office administrator, her husband, tries to obtain a transfer to a seaside town, on the French Riviera, at any cost. The trouble is that he is caught red-handed while trying to scam an inspector. Philippe is immediately banished to the distant unheard of town of Bergues, in the Far North of France. Leaving his child and wife behind, the crucified man leaves for his frightening destination, a dreadfully cold place inhabited by hard-drinking, unemployed rednecks, speaking an incomprehensible dialect called Ch'ti. Philippe soon realizes that all these ideas were nothing but prejudices and that Bergues is not synonymous with hell... -
Horse Money (2014)Cavalo Dinheiro
Nocturnal and steeped in sinister chiaroscuro, award-winning director Pedro Costa's latest film follows Ventura, the enigmatic lead of Costa's earlier groundbreaking Colossal Youth, as he traverses a seemingly endless night populated by the ghosts of his past. From the restless spirits that haunt this decaying urban landscape, Costa conjures a spellbinding cinematic experience. Featured in many Top 5 Films of the Year lists worldwide, Horse Money is a hauntingly beautiful contemplation of Portugal's tumultuous past and uncertain future from a true poet of contemporary European cinema. - Director:
- Pedro Costa
- Cast:
- Tito Furtado, António Santos, Vitalina Varela
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1900 (1976)Novecento
It is turn-of-the-century Italy, and in the summer of 1900 two children are born in the rich agricultural countryside in the region of Emilia. Olmo Dalco (Gerard Depardieu) is the bastard son of a family of farmworkers and Alfredo Berlinghieri (Robert De Niro) is heir to a wealthy family of landowners. Although they come from two different worlds, a friendship develops that will endure the sweeping changes of the 20th century. - Director:
- Bernardo Bertolucci
- Cast:
- Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda
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