maggs's - Rented List

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Based on a true story, 'Vita and Virginia' details the passionate relationship between literary trailblazer Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki), and enigmatic aristocrat Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton).

When their paths cross, the magnetic Vita decides the beguiling, stubborn and gifted Virginia will be her next conquest, no matter the cost. The ensuing relationship leads to the birth of Woolf's bold, experimental novel 'Orlando'. A daring celebration of an unconventional bond, and a vivid exploration of gender, sexuality, creativity and passion, 'Vita and Virginia' details the love story of two women - two writers - who smashed through social barriers to find solace in their forbidden connection.

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Summer 1979, East Germany during the height of the Cold War. Two ordinary families yearning for freedom secretly form a great escape plan to get across to the West.

With courage and ingenuity as their main weapons, they build a hot air balloon with small pieces of cloth for their eight family members to fly over the Iron Curtain. But an initial failure puts their entire plan in jepopardy, setting off a dangerous race against time for a second attempt, with the State Police now hot on their heels...An incredible and gripping true story of resistance.

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Eve (Gabriela Cartol) is a conscientious hotel chambermaid. Punctual and enterprising, paying close attention to the details, she hopes her impeccable professionalism will bring her promotion to the Hotel Presidente's exclusive penthouse floor.

Long, laborious shifts prevent Eve from caring for her child while she helps guests with their own children. Aviles records her day-to-day activities, from the detail of ensuring rooms are immaculately presented each morning to enrolling in the hotel's adult education programme, which will help her chances of promotion. When things don't result as planned, Eve transforms her lonely explorations and newfound courage into the necessary strength to face a life outside the glimmering tower.

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In the 1920s, political activist Jimmy Gralton built a dance hall in rural Ireland. As the hall grew in popularity its free-spirited reputation brought it to the attention of the church and politicians who forced Jimmy to flee and the hall to close.

A decade later, at the height of the Depression, Jimmy returns from the US. The hall stands abandoned but as Jimmy sees the poverty and growing oppression in the village, the leader and activist within him is stirred. He decides to reopen the hall, and so takes on the established authorities of the church and the government.

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1913: Irisz (Juli Jakab) arrives in Budapest with dreams of working as a milliner at her late parents' legendary hat making shop. However, it soon transpires that she has a different motive - investigating the disappearance of her brother who worked at the store.

So begins a journey deep into the dark underbelly of Hungary's turbulent society on the eve of the First World War.

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March 1939: thousands of children's lives are under threat from the Nazis. At the outbreak of World War II, Sir Nicholas Winton saved the lives of 669 Czechoslovakian children from the lethal threat of the Nazis.

Dubbed the British Schindler for his heroism, this film, produced by Emmy-award winning producer Matej Minác , tells the original story through dramatic reenactments narrated by the rescued children and Sir Nicholas himself. Rare archival footage and interviews with Joe Schlesinger, a CBC reporter and one of the rescued children, documents not only how Winton's act changed the lives of those he rescued, but also how it continues to influence the lives of thousands of others worldwide.

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On 22 June 1941 the German war Axis launches 'Operation Barbarossa', with four million troops invading the Soviet Union. By the late autumn Sevastopol, a strategic port in the Crimea on the Black Sea, was still standing defiant.

Ayoimg Ukrainian recruit, exhibiting impressive skill and prowess with a rifle, proves her immense value to the Red Army as a crack-sniper, notching up 309 lulls as testament to her marksmanship, making her the number 1 female sniper of WWII, beating the tallies of many of her male compatriots. 'Battle for Sevastopol' is the thrilling true story of individual courage and prowess during a prolonged and tempestuous siege against a mighty oppressor less than two years into the Second World War.

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Amid the trendy, bohemian scene of London's famed Bloomsbury group, Dora Carrington (Thompson), a talented young artist, first meets bon vivant and writer Lytton Strachey (Pryce). The two creative souls are instantly attracted, although Strachey's desires clearly lie elsewhere.

The unlikely pair joyously spends colourful days pursuing their arts - and discovering that love works in mysterious ways. But their blissful existence hangs in the balance when Carrington brings home a lover and they suddenly find themselves caught in a bizarre love triangle. As conflicting passions heat to a boiling point, will true love triumph or will Carrington lose her one and only soul mate forever?

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Forced to live by his wits in order to survive, Zain's life in Beirut reaches a turning point when his parents make an unforgiveable deal that will see his younger sister (Haita 'Cedra' Izzam) married off.

Left distraught by this terrible turn of event he takes to the road and whilst looking for work at a fairground, befriends a young woman who is working as a cleaner and helps to look after her adorable baby Jonas (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole). Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) and Jonas form a touching bond but things are about to get much more complicated when a set of circumstances force Zain to make choices that will have huge ramifications. 'Capernaum' is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit - a battle cry for the forgotten, the unwanted and the lost that offers hope in the most unexpected of places.

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In 1944 Nazi-occupied France, the young Marguerite Duras (Mélanie Thierry) is a talented writer and an active Resistance member with her husband Robert Antelme (Emmanuel Bourdieu). When he is deported by the Gestapo, she dives into a desperate struggle to get him back.

She develops a chilling relationship with the detective Rabier (Benoît Magimel), and takes terrible risks to save Robert. Does Rabier he really want to help, or is he trying to dig up information about the anti-Nazi underground? Then comes the end of the war and the return of surviving camp victims, a long and silent agony after the chaos of the liberation of Paris. But she continues to wait, bound to the torment of absence even beyond hope and love.

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Set in 1946, this engrossing drama follows Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley), a British woman whose colonel husband (Jason Clarke) is charged with rebuilding war-ravaged Hamburg.

When she joins him there during the bitter winter months, she learns they will be sharing their home with a German widower (Alexander Skarsgard) and his troubled daughter. Before long, the unusual arrangement intensifies political divides and stirs deep personal wounds. In this increasingly charged environment, enmity and grief give way to unexpected passion and betrayal.

Melissa McCarthy is masterful in the captivating account - based on a true story - of a down-and-out writer who resorts to lies, deceit and outright crime to get back on top.

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Working his way to the top on Wall Street, Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed) is a promising business analyst who catches the attention of an influential and tough to please mentor, Jim Gross (Kiefer Sutherland).

With his career on the up, and a passionate relationship with the beautiful and talented Erica (Kate Hudson) starting, Changez has a future to look forward to.
Then 9/11 occurs, forcing him to be judged with tainted eyes as a young Pakistani man, resulting in him returning to his homeland. There he is free from alienation and suspicion but a chance meeting with Bobby Lincoln (Liev Schreiber), an American journalist, brings the reality of the world's situation crashing down.
"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is an explosive view on how one man can epitomise two nations and it is through extremism that lines are drawn.

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Katja's (Diane Kruger), life is torn apart when her husband and young son are suddenly killed in a bomb attack.

A police investigation point to a pair of young neo-Nazis as the key suspects, but a lack of evidence fails to fully incriminate them, Katja is forced to take matters into her own hands and her hunt for justice begins to take increasingly dangerous and unexpected turns.

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Based on the bestselling novel by M.L. Stedman and from acclaimed director Derek Cianfrance, 'The Light Between Oceans' is a beautiful and heart-breaking reminder of the infinite power of love and the lengths that we'll go to in order to protect it.

When lighthouse keeper Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) and his adored wife Isabel (Alicia Vikander) discover a baby adrift in a boat off the remote coast of Western Australia they assume the worse that her parents are dead. Determined to give her a happy life full of love they choose to raise the child as their own but it's not until years later that the shattering consequences of their decision will change their lives forever.