susan's - Rented List
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The passion and pathos of legendary poet Dylan Thomas is told through the lives of these two women. Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley) and Dylan (Matthew Rhys) were childhood sweethearts in their homeland Wales. Ten years later the two meet again in war-time London. She's working as a singer whilst he's churning out propaganda scripts for the government in aid of the war effort. The two feel the thunderbolt once more, but Thomas is now married to the adventurous Caitlin (Sienna Miller) and Vera is embarking on a romance with the intense but loyal William (Cillian Murphy). Despite their love-rival status the women form a strong friendship and when William goes to war the remaining trio form a fierce but unavoidably complicated bond. - Director:
- John Maybury
- Cast:
- Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Matthew Rhys
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Willem Dafoe stars in a career defining performance as a reluctant father figure to the residents of a motel set against the backdrop of a Disneyland resort. From critically acclaimed director Sean Baker (Tangerine) 'The Florida Project' is a wonderful film about the innocence of childhood and the social divide that often touches all sides of humanity. - Director:
- Sean Baker
- Cast:
- Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe
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Carlos Acosta changed dance forever when he became the first black principal dancer of The Royal Ballet. Born in Cuba, travelling to London and becoming one of the most celebrated performers of our times, this film captures both his incredible life story and footage of Acosta himself interpreting his history through dance. With beautiful recreations of Cuba under Castro, and with a script from Paul Laverty, the writer of 'I, Daniel Blake', we follow young Acosta as he bridles against a strict training regime to discover his own voice and unique talent, making sense of himself in the unfamiliar world of London. A stunning tribute to the power of dance. - Director:
- Icíar Bollaín
- Cast:
- Carlos Acosta, Santiago Alfonso, Keyvin Martínez
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Germany 1944: 15-year old Leyna (Amandla Stenberg), daughter of a white German mother and a black father, lives in fear due to the colour of her skin. When she meets Lutz (George MacKay), the son of a prominent SS officer and a member of the Hitler Youth - mandatory for all Aryan boys since 1936 - the two fall helplessly in love, putting both their lives at risk. - Director:
- Amma Asante
- Cast:
- Amandla Stenberg, Abbie Cornish, George MacKay
- Formats:
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Love Is All You Need (2012)Den Skaldede Frisør
Ida (Trine Dyrholm) is in the mood to celebrate after finishing a course of treatment for breast cancer and, with her daughter's Italian wedding to look forward to, things are looking up. However, when she arrives home from the hospital to find her husband doing some celebrating of his own with a much younger woman, Ida's world comes tumbling down. Arriving solo in Sorrento for the wedding, Ida is determined to put on a brave face and refuses to let even the initially brusque manner of the groom's father, Philip, (Pierce Brosnan) put her off. But as the wedding celebrations gather pace, all involved - including the supposedly happy couple - are faced with the realisation that the spirit of Italy is offering them the chance of a new beginning - one that Ida and Philip ultimately grasp with both hands. - Director:
- Susanne Bier
- Cast:
- Pierce Brosnan, Trine Dyrholm, Molly Blixt Egelind
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From the 1870s to the modem era, Radioactive is a journey through Marie Curie's enduring legacies - her passionate relationships, scientific breakthroughs, and the consequences that followed for her and for the world. After meeting fellow scientist Pierre Curie, the pair marry and change the face o science forever by their discovery of two new elements. The ensuing Nobel Prize propels the couple into the international limelight, but after a tragic accident Marie continues to advance her work, resulting in revolutionary discoveries that have dramatic consequences. - Director:
- Marjane Satrapi
- Cast:
- Rosamund Pike, Yvette Feuer, Mirjam Novak
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Jesse Eisenberg stars in the true story of Jewish Boy Scouts joining the French Resistance to save over 10,000 orphans from the Nazis in World War Two. Eisenberg plays famous mime artist Marcel Marceau who, together with a group of activists, fights to rescue Jewish orphans from ruthless Nazis and take them safely across the Swiss border. - Director:
- Jonathan Jakubowicz
- Cast:
- Jesse Eisenberg, Clémence Poésy, Matthias Schweighöfer
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Acclaimed New Zealand director Niki Caro and Keisha Castle-Hughes reunite in the long awaited adaptation of Elizabeth Knox's award winning novel The Vintner's Luck. The passionate tale of Sobran Jodeau, an ambitious young peasant winemaker and the three loves of his life - his beautiful wife Celeste, the proudly intellectual baroness Aurora de Valday and Xas, an angel who strikes up an unlikely but enduring friendship. Under his guidance Sobran is forced to fathom the nature of love and belief and in the process grapples with the sensual, the sacred and the profane - in pursuit of the perfect vintage. - Director:
- Niki Caro
- Cast:
- Jérémie Renier, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Vania Vilers
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Europa Europa (1990)Europa, Europa
As World War II splits Europe, sixteen-year-old German Jew Salomon (Marco Hofschneider) is separated from his family after fleeing with them to Poland, and finds himself reluctantly assuming various ideological identities in order to hide the deadly secret of his Jewishness. He is bounced from a Soviet orphanage, where he plays a dutiful Stalinist, to the Russian front, where he hides in plain sight as an interpreter for the German army, and back to his home country, where he takes on his most dangerous role: a member of the Hitler Youth. Based on the real-life experiences of Salomon Perel, Agnieszka Holland's wartime tour de force 'Europa Europa' is a breathless survival story told with the verve of a comic adventure, an ironic refutation of the Nazi idea of racial purity, and a complex portrait of a young man caught up in shifting historical calamities and struggling to stay alive. - Director:
- Agnieszka Holland
- Cast:
- Solomon Perel, Marco Hofschneider, René Hofschneider
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On a remote mountaintop, a rebel group of commandos perform military training exercises while watching over a prisoner (Julianne Nicholson) for a shadowy force known only as 'The Organization'. After a series of unexpected events drives them deep into the jungle, fracturing their intricate bond, their mission slowly begins to collapse. Set against a stunningly beautiful but dangerous landscape, Alejandro Landes' awe-inspiring film is a breathtakingly epic vision that will leave you both mesmerised and utterly gripped. - Director:
- Alejandro Landes
- Cast:
- Sofia Buenaventura, Julián Giraldo, Karen Quintero
- Formats:
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Happy as Lazzaro (2018)Lazzaro Felice
Lazzaro (talented newcomer Adriano Tardiolo) is a beautiful peasant whose sweet nature makes people mistake him for simple-minded. He happily does the bidding of anyone in his local village, which is ruled over by the evil Marchesa (Nicoletta Braschi). He finds an unlikely friend in the Marchesa's petulant son Tancredi (Tommaso Ragno / Luca Chikovani), who convinces his hapless ally to help him stage a dramatic incident to secure a ransom. 'Happy as Lazzaro' follows the adventures of this young man living on the margins of his society, who can seemingly travel through time, arriving in the big city and appearing as a fragment of the past lost in the modern world. - Director:
- Alice Rohrwacher
- Cast:
- Adriano Tardiolo, Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher
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Silent Running (1972)Running Silent
In the not-so-distant future, Earth is barren of all flora and fauna, with what remains of the planet's former ecosystems preserved aboard a fleet of greenhouses orbiting in space. When the crews are ordered to destroy the remaining specimens, one botanist, Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), rebels and flees towards Saturn in a desperate bid to preserve his own little piece of Earth that was, accompanied only by the ship's three service robots. - Director:
- Douglas Trumbull
- Cast:
- Bruce Dern, Joseph Campanella, Cliff Potts
- Formats:
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Platform (2000)Zhantai
Jia Zhang Ke's ambitious film follows the lives of four friends over a turbulent 10 year period of Chinese history, from 1979 to 1989. In the small town of Fenyang, in the remote western province of Shanxi, the teenage members of a state theatre troupe stage propaganda plays in praise of Mao. But as the country opens up to the free market and implements wide-ranging reform, their lives are irrevocably changed as the world around them is transformed by the music, fashions and other cultural influences of the West. Named after a hit 80's Chinese pop song, Platform gives a vivid insight into modern China and absorbingly documents the sweeping social changes experienced by its people. - Director:
- Jia Zhang-ke
- Cast:
- Wang Hong-wei, Zhao Tao, Liang Jing-dong
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The exciting adventure of the day we make contact with life beyond Earth comes to the screen with a profound sense of wonder and a dazzling visual sweep that extends to the outer reaches of space and the imagination. Jodie Foster is astronomer Ellie Arroway, a woman of science. Matthew McConaughey is religious scholar Palmer Joss, a man of faith. They're opposite ends of a spectrum - and sudden players on the world stage as the countdown to humanity's greatest journey begins. - Director:
- Robert Zemeckis
- Cast:
- Jodie Foster, Pamela Wilsey, Matthew McConaughey
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Toto the Hero (1991)Toto le héros
Convinced that a nursery fire lead to them being mixed up as babies, Thomas has been consumed with jealous hatred for his wealthy and successful neighbour Alfred, the man he believes stole the life that should have been his. And now, an old man, he reflects on the past, the tragedies of his own life and his thoughts turn to vengeance. - Director:
- Jaco van Dormael
- Cast:
- Michel Bouquet, Mireille Perrier, Jo De Backer
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