mwdw's - Rented List
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Lilya 4-Ever (2002)Lilja 4-ever
The film is a touching and tender insight into the life of Lilya (Oksana Akinshin) who lives in a poor suburb somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Lilya's mother has emigrated to the States and she is waiting to be sent for. After a while it becomes clear that she has been abandoned. Left alone and broke Lilya strikes up a friendship with local 11 year old boy, Colodya (Artion Bogucharskij), himself an outcast. Through their similar circumstances they fantasise of a life elsewhere. Moodysson's award winning script is observant of the hopes and dreams of Lilya and Volodya but is realistic about the world they live in. It is this realist approach that has drawn comparisons between Moodysson and some of the classic realist directors including Truffaut, Bresson and Ken Loach. - Director:
- Lukas Moodysson
- Cast:
- Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharskiy, Pavel Ponomaryov
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The Courier (2020)Ironbark
In this true-life cold war spy thriller, unossuming British businessman Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) becomes entangled in one of the greatest international conflicts in history. Recruited by MI6 and a CIA operative (Rachel Brosnahan), Wynne forms a covert partnership with Soviet officer Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), and both men risk everything in a danger-fraught race against time to provide the intelligence needed to prevent nuclear confrontation and end the Cuban Missile Crisis. - Director:
- Dominic Cooke
- Cast:
- Benedict Cumberbatch, Merab Ninidze, Rachel Brosnahan
- Formats:
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The Tenant (1976)Le Locataire
An apartment with an unhappy past, in a building filled with faintly sinister residents, sets the stage for filmmaker Roman Polanski's riveting thriller 'The Tenant'. Polanski plays Trelkovsky, a quiet, timid file clerk whose unremarkable life becomes Increasingly overshadowed with dread and fear after he moves into his new home. Adding to his paranoia are the building's other occupants, who do nothing to alleviate his growing obsession with the untimely, tragic fate of the apartment's previous tenant. Is Trelkovsky's dread truly justified - or is it simply the result of his seemingly disintegrating mental state? - Director:
- Roman Polanski
- Cast:
- Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas
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The Turin Horse (2011)A Torinói ló
Taking its cue from Nietzsche's famous encounter with a mistreated horse on Via Carlo Alberto, The Turin Horse depicts the aftermath of this seemingly innocuous but destructively profound confrontation. Following a man and his daughter in their daily routine, a bizarre series of disturbing events slowly begin to strip life of its very essence resulting in a terrifying, all-consuming finale... - Director:
- Béla Tarr
- Cast:
- János Derzsi, Lajos Kovács, Erika Bók
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The Cuckoo (2002)Kukushka
A dramatic anti-war romantic comedy set on the northern border between Russia and Finland during World War II a few weeks before the Finnish surrender in 1944, 'The Cuckoo' tells the compelling story of two runaways - a Russian captain (Victor Bychkov) and a Finnish sniper (Ville Haapasalo) - who find refuge with a young Lapp widower (Anni-Kristiina Juuso). Naturally, there arc cultural and linguistic barriers between them, not to mention war rivalries. Yet they slowly get to know each other and their very separate worlds come together in both comic and tragic ways. - Director:
- Aleksandr Rogozhkin
- Cast:
- Anni-Kristiina Juuso, Ville Haapasalo, Viktor Bychkov
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Alice in the Cities (1974)Alice in den Städten
Philip Winter (Rüdiger Vogler), a journalist with writer's block, becomes the guardian of eight year-old Alice (Yella Rottlander) when her mother leaves the girl with him briefly at an American airport, only never to return. Back in Germany, an unlikely friendship develops between the two as they embark on a journey to find Alice's grandmother. - Director:
- Wim Wenders
- Cast:
- Yella Rottländer, Rüdiger Vogler, Lisa Kreuzer
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Woman at War (2018)Kona fer í stríð
To her friends, Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir) leads a quiet and routine life. But her happy and upbeat exterior hides a secret double life as a committed environmental activist. Known to others as "The Mountain Woman", she wages a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry to protect the stunning highland landscape that is under threat. Just as she begins planning her biggest and boldest operation yet, she receives an unexpected letter that will change everything. She will be forced to choose between her environmental crusade and the chance of fulfilling her dream of becoming a mother. Funny, moving and utterly unique, 'Woman at War' follows Halla as she juggles the adoption of a beautiful little girl whilst planning her final act of industrial sabotage. - Director:
- Benedikt Erlingsson
- Cast:
- Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Jóhann Sigurðarson, Juan Camillo Roman Estrada
- Formats:
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Tell No One (2006)Ne Le Dis A Personne
Relentless edge-of-your-seat suspense, jaw-dropping, high-octane action and a powerful love story combine in what has been hailed by many critics as the best film of the year. 'Tell No One' follows one man's frantic race against time when his tragic past is suddenly and unexpectedly unearthed. Dr. Alex Beck (François Cluzet) is left unconscious after his wife, and childhood sweetheart, Margot (Marie-Josée Croze) is brutally murdered. 8 years on and still unaware of the truth, Alex receives an anonymous e-mail. Clicking on the link he sees a woman's face in a crowd - Margot's face...But before this can sink in, Alex is thrown headlong into a deadly chase - running from both the Police and a team of killers who will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden. - Director:
- Guillaume Canet
- Cast:
- François Cluzet, Marie-Josée Croze, André Dussollier
- Formats:
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West (2013)Lagerfeuer
Between the years 1949 and 1990 roughly four million people left the GDR for West Germany. "West" (adapted from the book Lagerfeuer by Julia Franck) tells the story of Nelly, a young mother, who together with her son, tries for a new beginning in the West. After undergoing a humiliating strip-search before being allowed to leave, she discovers she has to undergo yet more interrogations by the Allied secret services that treat many refugees with the suspicion that they may be working for the Stasi. The Emergency Refugee Centre turns from a place of safety into a cold war location, and when seeming friends could actually be informants, Nelly becomes infected by paranoia. With great personal and political power, "West" shows the difficulties of daring to start a new life. Jordis Triebel gives an outstanding performance as Nelly, that won her the best German actress of the year award. - Director:
- Christian Schwochow
- Cast:
- Jördis Triebel, Tristan Göbel, Alexander Scheer
- Formats:
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Sophie Scholl (2005)Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage
Echoing Downfall's contemplation of the darkest period in Germany's history, Sophie Scholl is a heartbreaking drama based on real life events and the activities of the While Rose resistance gi< Munich, 1943. A group of students, including siblings, Sophie Scholl, instigate passive resistance in an attempt to,, overthrow the Nazi regime. Sophie and Hans are arrested for distributing leaflets and an intense psychological duel ensues in the interrogation room between Sophie and Gestapo officer Mohr; she lies and denies, then schemes and challenges. Ultimately crushing evidence is presented and though forced to confess Scholl fights to save the lives of her brother and friends. Based on transcripts of the interrogation and witness intend Marc Rothemund's Sophie Scholl is a tense and illuminating account of an extremely courageous stance taken against ovcrwhelming odds. - Director:
- Marc Rothemund
- Cast:
- Julia Jentsch, Anne Clausen, Joseph Goebbels
- Formats:
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Burnt by the Sun (1994)Utomlennye solntsem
It's 1936 and respected hero of the Bolshevik Revolution Colonel Sergei Kotov (Nikita Mikhalkov) is living an idyllic life in the Russian countryside with his wife Maroussia (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) and daughter Nadia (Nadia Mikhalkova). One glorious summer's day his serenity is interrupted by the arrival of the mysterious Dimitri (Oleg Menshikov), a former lover of Maroussia who had disappeared from her life ten years earlier. With songs and stories their new guest charms everyone but Kotov soon begins to suspect more sinister motives for his re-appearance. Set against the growing threat of Stalin's regime of terror, Nikita Mikhalkov's poignant, Oscar-winning him lingers in the memory long after viewing. - Director:
- Nikita Mikhalkov
- Cast:
- Nikita Mikhalkov, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Oleg Menshikov
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Army of Shadows (1969)L'armée Des Ombres
Melville's most personal film, rooted in his wartime experiences in the French Resistance, Army Of Shadows is a hard, tense drama, depicting man's capacity for both bravery and evil. In the winter of 1942-1943, as France exist s under German occupation, an underground cell operates in the shadows. In the clandestine world of the Resistance, the freedom fighters work against their enemies under the constant risk of betrayal, ordinary men and women in an extraordinary situation. Suffused throughout with a mood of foreboding, the suspense, heightened with directorial mastery, reaches its peak as the Resistance attempt to free a prisoner from the Gestapo headquarters, in one of Melville's trademark set-pieces of iconic action. - Director:
- Jean-Pierre Melville
- Cast:
- Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel
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The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)Die Ehe der Maria Braun
Maria and Hermann Braun marry in Germany close to the end of World War II but are shortly separated. Just after being sent to the Russian Front, Hermann is reported missing and, although Maria believes he is still alive, her brother in law, just returned from a POW camp in Russia, confirms his death. Alone, Maria uses her beauty and ambition to prosper in Germany's "economic miracle" of the 1950s. 'The Marriage of Maria Braun' is heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past. - Director:
- Rainer Werner Fassbinder
- Cast:
- Hanna Schygulla, Klaus Löwitsch, Ivan Desny
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After being released from prison, Berlin street musician Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.) finds himself lost in a world where he simply doesn't belong. So along with his prostitute girlfriend (Eva Mattes) and an eccentric neighbor (Clemens Scheitz), Stroszek moves to America, where he's told, everyone is rich. It doesn't take long, however, after moving into a mobile home and taking a job as a mechanic, for Stroszek to realize that the streets of Railroad Flats, Wisconsin aren't paved with gold. - Director:
- Werner Herzog
- Cast:
- Bruno S., Eva Mattes, Clemens Scheitz
- Formats:
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Who You Think I Am (2019)Celle que vous croyez
To spy on her younger ex-lover, divorcee Claire (Juliette Binoche) creates a fake profile on social media. Posing as a 24-year-old named Clara, Claire becomes entangled with her ex's friend Alex who is instantly enamored. Riding a wave of self-discovery but confined to her avatar, Claire falls madly in love with Alex. Although everything is played out in the virtual world, the feelings that blossom become very real. As Clara and Alex's virtual lives grow, Claire's reality begins to hang by a thread as her web of lies starts to unravel. - Director:
- Safy Nebbou
- Cast:
- Juliette Binoche, Nicole Garcia, François Civil
- Formats:
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