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Movies like El Sur

Key Features:
Father-daughter relationship, Coming-of-age, Memory, Nostalgia, Rural setting, Spanish Civil War, Family secrets, Introspection, Melancholy
Tone:
restrained, poetic, serious
Target Audience:
Fans of art house cinema, Viewers interested in character-driven stories, Those who appreciate introspective dramas
Emotional Arc:
Innocence → Curiosity → Reflection

El Sur

1983-05-18
El Sur Poster - Find Similar Movies

A woman recalls her childhood growing up in the North of Spain, focusing on her relationship with her father.

Genres
Drama
Cast
Omero Antonutti, Sonsoles Aranguren, Icíar Bollaín, Lola Cardona, Rafaela Aparicio, Aurore Clément, Maria Caro, Francisco Merino, José Vivó, Germaine Montero
Crew
Víctor Erice, Víctor Erice
Rating
7.7(142 votes)
El SurEl Sur
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Cows
Cows(1992)
6.4

A film set in the Spanish side of the Basque Country, beginning in the Carlist war of 1875 and ending during the Spanish Civil war of 1936. The film portrays how one single act of cowardice shapes the life of the next three generations of two families and fuels the intense rivalry which will span the next sixty-one years.



Cria!
Cria!(1976)
7.5

Ana, an eight-year-old girl living in Madrid with her grandmother and two sisters, mourns the death of her mother.



Summer 1993
7.1

After her mother's death, six-year-old Frida is sent to her uncle's family to live with them in the countryside. But Frida finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life.



After Lucia
6.6

Alejandra and her dad Roberto have just moved to town. She is new at school, he has a new job. Starting over is sometimes complicated when you have left so much behind.



Volver
Volver(2006)
7.465

Raimunda, a working-class woman living in Madrid, is dealing with the aftermath of a fire that killed her parents in her native village in La Mancha. Raimunda's life is further complicated when her deceased mother, Irene, returns as a ghost to resolve unfinished family business, including a murder and other buried truths.



Black Bread
6.7

In the harsh post-war years' Catalan countryside, Andreu, a child that belongs to the losing side, finds the corpses of a man and his son in the forest. The authorities want his father to be made responsible of the deaths, but Andreu tries to help his father by finding out who truly killed them. In this search, Andreu develops a moral consciousness against a world of adults fed by lies. In order to survive, he betrays his own roots and ends up finding out the monster that lives within him.



Belle Époque
6.6

In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.



The Quietude
6.1

Against the backdrop of a military dictatorship, Eugenia is reunited with her estranged family following her father’s stroke and is forced to confront dark secret.



Lullaby
Lullaby(2022)
7.2

Amaia has just become a mother, and the challenge is even more significant than she imagined. So when her partner has to leave for several weeks because of his job, she decides to spend time with her parents in a lovely coastal village in the Basque Country and hopefully share the responsibility of looking after her baby. However, she forgot that even when one becomes a parent, one never stops being a daughter.



Julieta
Julieta(2016)
6.982

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.



Memories of Underdevelopment

In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs incident, Sergio chooses to stay behind in Cuba while his wife and family escape to neighboring Miami. Alone in a brave new world, Sergio observes the constant threat of foreign invasion while chasing young women all over Havana. He finally meets Elena, a young girl he seeks to mould into the image of his ex-wife, but at what cost to himself?



The Sleeping Voice
6.663

Finished the Spanish Civil War in April 1939, in November 1940, while Spain is being crushed by the ruthless boot of dictator Franco, Pepita travels from rural Córdoba to Madrid to be near her sister Hortensia, who is seven months pregnant and imprisoned, haunted by the shadow of a death sentence.



Jauja
Jauja(2014)
6.576

A father and daughter journey from Denmark to an unknown desert that exists in a realm beyond the confines of civilization.



The Blind Sunflowers
6.508

Orense, Spain, 1940, just after the end of the Civil War. Every time Elena locks the door of her home, she and her children become the faithful guardians of a sacred secret: Ricardo, her husband, their father, hides in the house, trying to avoid the brutal political persecution of the victors, who hunt, as if they were wild animals, and imprison or execute, those who have lost the bloody and tragic struggle…



Retablo
Retablo(2018)
7.3

Segundo sees silence as his only option for dealing with his father Noé’s secret. The 14-year-old lives with his parents in a village high up in the mountains. Noé is a respected artisan and Segundo’s role model. With loving eye for detail, he artfully crafts altarpieces for church and homes, and is preparing his son to follow in his footsteps. But cracks form in their tight bond.



Esteros
Esteros(2016)
6.512

Childhood friends Matías and Jerónimo reach adolescence and experience sexual attraction to each other, before being separated by circumstances. Later, as young adults, they meet again, and the film follows themes of complicated relationships and sexual tensions, as well as issues of homophobia.



The Hunt
The Hunt(1966)
7

Three veterans of the Spanish Civil War go rabbit hunting. While doing so, old wounds open up.



Sandra
Sandra(1965)
6.994

Sandra returns to her childhood village to take care of family business, but childhood memories and secrets soon overcome her.



Memory
Memory(2023)
7.068

Sylvia is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life: her daughter, her job, her AA meetings. This is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they open the door to the past.



Along the Ridge
7.02

A young father and his two children struggle to find harmony after his wife leaves them for another man.



The Endless Trench
6.876

A small village in Huelva, Andalusia, Spain, 1936. Higinio and Rosa have been married only for a few months when the Civil War breaks out. Higinio, being afraid of possible reprisals from the rebel faction, decides to use a hole dug in his own house as a temporary hideout.



Close Your Eyes
7.105

Years after his mysterious disappearance, Julio Arenas, a famous Spanish actor, is back in the news thanks to a television program.



The Spirit of the Beehive

In 1940, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl living on the Castilian plain is haunted after attending a screening of James Whale's 1931 film Frankenstein and hearing from her sister that the monster is not dead, instead existing as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn.



La Ciénaga
6.885

Amid the sweltering summer heat in northern Argentina, two middle-class families retreat to a crumbling country estate and a modest townhouse, where strained relationships, simmering tensions, and the presence of children and servants quietly expose the fractures of family life. Between idle days, gossip, and unspoken desires, the boundaries of class, tradition, and faith are reflected in their everyday interactions.



Aftersun
Aftersun(2022)
7.674

Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.



Everybody Knows
6.54

Laura, a Spanish woman living in Buenos Aires, returns to her hometown outside Madrid with her Argentinian husband and children. However, the trip is upset by unexpected events that bring secrets into the open.



Intimate Stories
7.3

Three people and a baby set off on separate journeys, along the same road; their disparate dreams and stories intertwine amidst the breathtaking deserted Patagonic route.



Land and Shade
7

Alfonso is an old farmer who has returned home to tend to his son, who is gravely ill. He rediscovers his old house, where the woman who was once his wife still lives, with his daughter-in-law and grandson. The landscape that awaits him resembles a wasteland. Vast sugar cane plantations surround the house, producing perpetual clouds of ash. 17 years after abandoning them, Alfonso tries to fit back in and save his family.



We Are What We Are
5.915

After the death of a patriarch, a family must try to continue on with a disturbing, ritualistic tradition.



Butterfly
Butterfly(1999)
7.355

The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.



Martin (Hache)
7.4

19-year-old Argentine Martin has a nearly fatal drug overdose. After that, his mother sends him to Madrid, where his film director father (also Martin) lives with his new, much younger lover, Alicia, and bisexual actor friend, Dante.



Goodbye
Goodbye(2019)
6.993

Seville, Spain. Juan Santos, a convicted petty criminal, gets out of jail for a day to celebrate with Triana, his wife, the first communion of their daughter Estrella.



Darkness
Darkness(2002)
5.635

A teenage girl moves into a remote country home with her family, only to discover that the gloomy old house has a horrifying past that threatens to destroy them.



Parallel Mothers
6.8

Two unmarried women who have become pregnant by accident and are about to give birth meet in a hospital room: Janis, in her late-thirties, unrepentant and happy; Ana, a teenager, remorseful and frightened.



The Teacher Who Promised the Sea

Ariadna discovers that her grandfather has been searching for the remains of his father, who disappeared during the Civil War. Determined to help him, she travels to Burgos, where a mass grave is being excavated, and where he could be buried. During her stay there, she will learn the story of Antoni Benaiges, a young teacher from Tarragona who was her grandfather's teacher before the war. Through an innovative pedagogical method, Antoni inspired his students and made them a promise: to take them to see the sea.



Cousinhood
6.63

Three cousins travel to the village where they spent summer vacations as kids.



La Civil
La Civil(2021)
7.7

Cielo is a mother whose teenage daughter is kidnapped in Northern Mexico. When the authorities offer no support in the search, Cielo takes matters into her own hands and transforms from housewife into a vengeful militant.



Memories of My Father

In the polarized and violent Medellín (Colombia's 'City of Eternal Spring') of the 1970s, doctor Héctor Abad Gómez is concerned about both his children and children from less favored classes. After a devastating loss in the family, Héctor gives himself to the greater cause of public health programs for the poor in Medellín to the consternation of the city's authorities.



Shame
Shame(1968)
7.517

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.



The Devil's Backbone
7.282

Spain, 1939. In the last days of the Spanish Civil War, the young Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he will make friends and enemies as he follows the quiet footsteps of a mysterious presence eager for revenge.



Hot Milk
Hot Milk(2025)
6.027

Rose and her daughter Sofia travel to the Spanish seaside town of Almería to consult with the shamanic Dr. Gomez, a physician who could possibly hold the cure to Rose’s mystery illness, which has left her bound to a wheelchair. But in the sultry atmosphere of this sun-bleached town Sofia, who has been trapped by her mother’s illness all her life, finally starts to shed her inhibitions, enticed by the persuasive charms of enigmatic traveller Ingrid.



Sunset Song
6.2

The daughter of a Scottish farmer comes of age in the early 1900s.



The End
The End(2012)
5

One weekend, after years without seeing each other, several friends, over whom hangs the shadow of a murky episode of the past, meet in a house in the mountains. During the first night, a strange incident takes place that leaves them isolated.



Lost in the Night
6.47

A young man from a small mining town embroils himself with a wealthy family with a dubious past.



Giovanna's Father
6.9

Michele Casali is a middle-class professor in Fascist Italy who teaches at the same high school attended by his only daughter, Giovanna. A shy and sensitive girl, her insecurities are only magnified by Michele's overprotectiveness—reaching a point of no return.



Quién te cantará
7.067

Lila, a famous retired singer, loses her memory after suffering an accident, just as she planned her return to the stage.



Double Dad
6.7

While her mom is away, a teen sneaks out of the hippie commune where she lives and embarks on a life-changing adventure to discover who her father is.



Ana and Bruno
7.6

Ana, a nine year old girl, arrives with her mother to an isolated beach with the intention to rest and to know the sea. There, she discovers that they are under a terrible threat, therefore she is obligated to look for help with her father in order to save her mother.



Tabu
Tabu(2012)
7.017

Lisbon, Portugal, 2010. Pilar, a pious woman devoted to social causes, maintains a peculiar relationship with her neighbor Aurora, a temperamental old woman obsessed with gambling who lives tormented by a mysterious past.



Father and Daughter

A father says goodbye to his young daughter. In time the daughter grows old, but within her there is always a deep longing for her father.



Memoria
Memoria(2021)
6

After hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, a Scottish woman begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia.



Hierro
Hierro(2009)
5.528

Traveling on a ferry heading to the island of Hierro where they will spend their holidays, Mary loses her son Diego, and no one can explain what happened. Six months later, Maria struggles to overcome the pain of loss and continue his life. Then, you receive an unexpected phone call: they found the body of a child, so it must return to the island. There, in the suggestive and disturbing landscape, surrounded by disturbing and sinister characters, Mary is forced to confront their worst nightmares. And as he travels this road, he discovers that some mysteries should not be disclosed ...



Schoolgirls
6.6

In early 1990s Spain, eleven-year-old Celia lives with her mother and studies at a convent school in Zaragoza. When Brisa, a confident new classmate from Barcelona, arrives, Celia is drawn into a world that challenges the strict religious teachings and sheltered life she has known. Their friendship pushes her to confront hidden truths at home and the uncertainties of adolescence, leading her to explore questions of identity, independence, and belonging.



Pedro Páramo
6.947

A man searches for his father, Pedro Páramo, in a town doomed by violence and the fury of a frustrated love.



Florida
Florida(2015)
6.4

Although he's now eighty years old, Claude Lherminier is still as imposing as he ever was. But his bouts of forgetfulness and confusion are becoming increasingly frequent. Even so, he stubbornly refuses to admit that anything is wrong. Carole, his oldest daughter, wages a daily and taxing battle to ensure that he's not left on his own. Claude suddenly decides on a whim to go to Florida. What lies behind this sudden trip?



If Only
If Only(2020)
6.25

Alma, Jean and Sebastiano, the children of divorced parents, arrive in Rome from Paris on a visit to their father. During a holiday, the family’s tensions come to the surface.



Post Tenebras Lux
6.162

Juan and his urban family live in the Mexican countryside, where they enjoy and suffer a world apart. And nobody knows if these two worlds are complimentary or if they strive to eliminate one another.



The Tree of Blood
6.4

Marc and Rebeca, a young couple, travel to an old country house that used to belong to their family. Once there, they write the shared history of their roots, creating a huge family tree that harbours relationships of love, heartbreak, sex, madness, jealousy and infidelity, and under which also lies a history laden with secrets.



Clandestine Childhood

Juan lives in clandestinity. Just like his mum, his dad and his adored uncle Beto, outside his home he has another name. At school, Juan is known as Ernesto. And he meets María, who only has one name. Based on true events, set in the Argentina of 1979, this film is one about love.



Suzanne
Suzanne(2013)
6.874

The story of a family and a love affair told through the journey of a young woman called Suzanne.



Despite Everything

Sara, Lucía, Sofía and Claudia are sisters, 4 modern women with very different personalities, who come together at their mother's funeral, after which they discover the man they've all called "dad" throughout their lives is not really their father. They embark on a quest to discover who their real fathers are, discovering more about themselves, their mother, and their lives.



Mother
Mother(2019)
6.73

Ten years have gone by since Elena's six-year old son has disappeared. The last thing she heard of him was a phone call he gave her, saying that he was lost on a beach in France and couldn't find his father. Nowadays, Elena lives on this same beach and manages a restaurant. She is finally beginning to emerge from this tragic episode when she meets a French teenager who strongly reminds her of her lost son. The two of them will embark on a relationship which will sow chaos and distrust around them.



Trauma
Trauma(2017)
5.481

Four friends visit a rural locality of Chile, are brutally attacked by a man and his son. After not finding help in the town, they decide to confront these men with the help of a pair of policemen. But in this way, they will discover that their attackers have in their blood the direct legacy of the darkest period of Chilean history and will have to face the most brutal enemy.



Valley of Shadows
6.427

Quique, Clara and little Lucas are vacationing in northern India. One night, sleeping outside during a storm, they are brutally attacked. Hours later, Quique is rescued by a native and taken to a remote isolated village in the mountains.



While at War
7.07

Salamanca, Spain, 1936. In the early days of the military rebellion that began the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), writer Miguel de Unamuno supports the uprising in the hope that the prevailing political chaos will end. But when the confrontation becomes bloody, Unamuno must question his initial position.



Out Stealing Horses
6.423

November 1999. 67-year-old Trond lives in new-found solitude and looks forward to spending New Year's Eve 2000 alone. As winter arrives he discovers he has a neighbor, a man Trond knew back in 1948, the summer he turned 15 and the summer Trond's father prepared him to carry the burden of his forthcoming betrayal and disappearance.



The Legacy of the Bones

Inspector Amaia Salazar must return to the Baztan valley in order to solve a series of suicides that seem to follow a similar pattern.



A House on Fire
6.835

Montse, divorced and with two children who have long ignored her, prepares for a family reunion at her home on the Costa Brava.



Two Women
Two Women(1960)
7.8

A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.



Mirror
Mirror(1975)
7.943

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.



Butterflies
6.854

Three strangers with one thing in common — the same father — come to a Turkish village to bury him, and learn about him and each other.



Tokyo Story
8.2

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.



Common Wealth
6.9

Julia, a real estate agent, finds an enormous amount of money hidden in a dead man's apartment, a stroke of luck that will force her to face the wrath of the very peculiar inhabitants of the community, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on the money.



Ama
Ama(2021)
6.343

A portrait of the myth of maternity around the story of Pepa and her daughter, who are evicted from their home and forced to wander for a place to live with no support network.



The Wasteland
5.2

Lucía and her son live isolated from society in a flat place where there’s practically no life. The small family unit formed by mother and son hardly ever receives visitors, and their goal is to lead a quiet existence. At first they succeed, but the appearance of a mysterious, violent creature that starts stalking their small house will put the relationship that unites them to the test.



April's Daughters
5.9

Valeria is 17 and pregnant. She lives in Puerto Vallarta with Clara, her half sister. Valeria has not wanted her long-absent mother, April, to find out about her pregnancy, but due to the economic strain and the overwhelming responsibility of having a baby in the house, Clara decides to call their mother. April arrives, willing to her daughters, but we soon understand why Valeria had wanted her to stay away.



Paris, Texas
8.093

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.



Mírame
Mírame(2021)
6.8

Lalo is a teenager tormented by the recent death of his dad, and being forced to move to an old house with his grandmother Elena. After taking his dad's old wristwatch, the ghost of a young girl begins to haunt him. Now, Lalo's life is in danger as he tries to unfold the mysterious ghost who keeps frightening him, hoping to stop her from dragging him for good.



Paulina
Paulina(2015)
6.377

Paulina is a young lawyer with a promising career in Buenos Aires, who chooses to go back to her home town. Her father, Fernando, is a well known judge. Against his will, Paulina decides to teach in a suburban high school as part of an inclusion program. One night, after the second week working there, she's brutally assaulted by a gang. With the disapproval of the people around her, she decides to go back to work, in the neighborhood where she was attacked, without realizing that her attackers may be even closer than she thought.



In the City of Sylvia

A man returns to a city to try to track down a woman he met six years earlier.



Eloise
Eloise(2009)
6.6

A sensuous and ethereal story of two young women falling in love for the first time. Young, beautiful Àsia lies in a coma, her mother and boyfriend keeping constant vigil by her side. In flashback we see what led up to her accident, her life studying architecture at university, the somewhat overbearing relationship she has with her mother and her passionless relationship with Nathaniel.



In Country
5.6

Samantha Hughes, a teenaged Kentucky girl, never knew her father, who died in Vietnam before her birth. Samantha lives with her uncle Emmett, who also served in Vietnam. Emmett hangs around with Tom, Earl, and Pete, three other Vietnam vets who, like Emmett, all have problems of one kind or another that relate to their war experiences. Samantha becomes obsessed with finding out about her father.



The War Zone
6.8

An alienated teenager, saddened that he has moved away from London, must find a way to deal with a dark family secret.



Finding Altamira
5.8

The story of nine-year old Maria and her father Marcelino who, in 1879, found the first pre-historic cave paintings at the now world famous Altamira cave.



Jugaremos en el bosque

After the death of his son, Javier hopes that restoring his family's abandoned ranch will allow him and his wife Mariana, who attempted suicide, a new beginning, but his grandmother refuses.



Land and Freedom
7.3

David Carr is a British Communist who is unemployed. In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War begins, he decides to fight for the Republican side, a coalition of liberals, communists and anarchists, so he joins the POUM militia and witnesses firsthand the betrayal of the Spanish revolution by Stalin's followers and Moscow's orders.



The Grandmother
5.9

Susana leaves her life in Paris, where she works as a model, and returns to Madrid to take care of her grandmother Pilar.



Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed

Spain, 1966. An English teacher who travels to Almería when he hears that John Lennon is making a film there befriends with a 16-year-old boy who has run away from home and a young girl who also seems to be running away from something.



The Misfits Club
6.831

Valeria has just moved to Madrid after her parent's separation. What at first seems a bad start for her new life becomes the beginning of an amazing life experience. New friendships, a city full of possibilities, first love...



Lola and the Sea
6.4

Just when Lola, 18 years old and transgender, learns that she can finally have surgery, her mother, who is her only financial support, passes away. Abiding by her mother’s last wishes, Lola and her father, who are permanently in conflict and have not seen each other for two years, undertake a journey all the way to the Belgian coast. They realize the outcome of the journey may not be the one they were both expecting...



Gloria
Gloria(2013)
6.6

Gloria is a 58-year-old divorcée. Her children have all left home but she has no desire to spend her days and nights alone. Determined to defy old age and loneliness, she rushes headlong into a whirl of singles’ parties on the hunt for instant gratification – which only leads to repeated disappointment and enduring emptiness. But when Gloria meets Rodolfo, an ex-naval officer seven years her senior, she begins to imagine the possibility of a permanent relationship.



Pastoral: To Die in the Country

A director faces creative block while working on his latest film – a reimagination of his adolescence growing up in a mountain village in rural Japan.



The Red Virgin
7.059

Hildegart is conceived and educated by her mother Aurora to be the woman of the future, to become one of the most brilliant minds of Spain in the 1930s and one of the European references on female sexuality.



Not Like Dad
7.1

The story of the journey of an adult hero to his Bata, a stern Russian peasant who became a father at the dawn of the nineties and raised his son the way all Soviet people did.



The Tit and the Moon

A child does not stand the idea of having a new brother and dreams about drinking milk from the breasts of his mother again. The child asks the moon to bring him a tit only for him.



I Saw the Sun
6.4

In the southeast region of Turkey, the Kurdish family of Altun lives in a small mountainside village plagued by a 25-year war that makes their daily lives a hellish struggle. As the war intensifies, the family is forced to migrate west to the city of Istanbul.



All the Moons
7.4

During the final throes of the last Carlist war, a little girl is rescued from an orphanage by a mysterious woman who lives deep inside the forest.



Chaotic Ana
5.977

Ana, a teenager artist, is raised in Ibiza by her German father Klaus in a naturalist lifestyle. She meets Justine, who invites her to move to Madrid and get an artistic education and financial support. Ana befriends Linda, meets the problematic Said, a Saharawi youngster, and later she is hypnotized by Anglo, who opens a door to her memories and past lives.



The Daughter
6.3

In the last days of a dying logging town, Christian returns to his family home for his father Henry’s wedding. While home, Christian reconnects with his childhood friend Oliver, who has stayed in town working at Henry’s timber mill and is now out of a job. As Christian gets to know Oliver’s wife Charlotte, daughter Hedvig, and father Walter, he discovers a secret that could tear Oliver’s family apart.

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