sog's - Rented List

'White God' is a stunning allegory of the oppressed few savagely fighting hack against their privileged abusers. When a new law is passed penalising non-pedigree dogs, legions of abandoned mongrels stage an apocalyptic uprising against their tormentors.

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This gripping and intelligent film by Stephane Brize is in the social realist tradition of the Dardennes and of Laurent Cantet, examining the dehumanizing effects of unemployment and also the workplace itself.

At the age of 51 and after twenty months of unemployment, Thierry (Vincent Lindon) starts a new job in security at a supermarket that soon brings him face to face with a moral dilemma. How much is he willing to accept in order to keep his hard-won job is the central question that Measure of a Man (La Loi du Marche) addresses.

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Nadezhda (Margita Gosheva) is an English teacher who also works as a translator to earn extra cash. Stunned by a theft by one of her students she is determined to find the culprit. But meanwhile her personal life is put under huge pressure.

A bailiff tells her that her house is about to be seized because of unpaid mortgage payments. Determined to keep the house, she will do everything she can to get the money before it is too late. Her personal and professional life converge as she wonders, whilst her options start to run out, whether to question the principles she teaches her students.

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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.

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Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) dreams of becoming a professional boxer. When he is suddenly put in charge of his five year old son, he moves in with his sister for support. Whilst working as a nightclub bouncer, he meets the beautiful and confident killer whale trainer, Stephanie (Marion Cotillard).

He gives her his number, not expecting that she will ever call. After being the victim of a tragic accident, Stephanie surprisingly turns to Ali for support. These lost souls discover new meaning in life together when Ali enters the dangerous world of underground boxing.

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Elise (Veerle Baetens) and Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) have been together for seven passionate years but when their little girl Maybelle must face a serious illness, all the turning points in their intense and moving relationship seem to flash by.

They remember their love at first sight, courtship and passion, coming closer through their bluegrass music band, braving marriage, unexpected pregnancy and eventually the joy of parenthood after the birth of beautiful Maybelle. A complete circle of happiness for this very unconventional couple...
But as the stress and sorrow of Maybelle's treatment takes its toll, Didier and Elise begin to respond in different ways. They fight together for their child, as they hope love will not let them down when they need it most, but will love conquer fate?

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From legendary filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, 'Elle' is a gripping psychological noir thriller. Starring iconic actress Isabelle Huppert in a career-defining role, 'Elle' follows Michele LeBlanc (Huppert), founder and CEO of a successful video game company, who is attacked in her own home.

Upending our expectations, Michele begins to track down her assailant, and soon they are both drawn into a curious and thrilling game, one that at any moment may spiral out of control.

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Winner of the 2012 Golden Bear in Berlin, and marking a triumphant come-back for the Taviani brothers, this shows the creation of a performance of Julius Caesar by the inmates of Rome's high security Rebibbia prison that houses Mafia and Camorra members.

The political infighting of the play as interpreted by these tough men of honour who perform the play in their own dialects becomes both a many-layered exploration of the relationship between life and art and a moving and powerful rendition of the classic play.

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Tbilisi, 1992: Civil war is raging in the capital of the newly independent Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Amidst the mayhem, two inseparable fourteen-year-old friends, Natia and Eka, find their childhood coming to an end, with dysfunctional families, broken relationships and volatile politics all coming to a head. But the problems of disillusioned love, early marriage and oppressive male dominance will suddenly be thrown into sharp relief when one of the girls is given a gun...

After losing his mother, nine-year-old Icare (nicknamed "Courgette") is taken to a foster home to live with other kids his own age. Although he has trouble finding his place at first, Courgette soon learns to love those around him as he finds a new family of his own.

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Set at the dawning of the new millennium, this hilarious masterpiece is from the brilliantly offbeat worldview of Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson, director of the acclaimed 'You, the Living'. Described by critic J.

Hoberman as 'slapstick Ingmar Bergman', this witty yet resonant film unfolds as a series of comic inter-connected vignettes that portray scenes from an urban world which has ground to a halt and whose citizens teeter on the brink of madness.

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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.

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Lorna is an Albanian immigrant who has contracted a fake marriage with Claudy to obtain citizenship. The Russian Mafia are also involved and Lorna’s conscience is suddenly awakened when she connects with Claudy as a human. But she cannot remove herself from the plot so easily.

This is both a thriller and a deep exploration of troubled soul graced by remarkable performances.

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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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14 year old Maria (Lea Van Acken) is a member of a strict branch of Catholicism that rejects all the reforms that were made in the Church since the 1960s. Maria lives her everyday life in the modern world, yet yearns to follow Jesus fully, to become a saint and go to heaven.

Christian, a boy she meets at school, almost draws Maria away from her goal with an invite to join the school's gospel choir, but her strictly pious mother (Franziska Weisz) pulls her back in line, seeing his tentative approaches as a temptation to sin, along with participating in what she sees as the 'Devil's music'. Told in fourteen individual tableaus that parallel Christ's journey to his crucifixion, 'Stations of the Cross' is both an indictment of fundamentalist faith and the articulation of an impressionable teen's struggle to find her own path in life.