The Scandalous History of the Empress

Firehouse Conflict erupts within a close-knit engine company of a big-city fire department when a black recruit and a bigoted white veteran clash during a wave of suspected arson in the ghetto. Pilot to the short-lived series that began a run in January 1974.

A Woman's Touch Sonbert was also a noted film critic, and his writings about feature films are among his more extraordinarily profound and insightful creations. In them, he expressed admiration for a pantheon of American directors working within the studio system, including Alfred Hitchcock, Nicholas Ray and Douglas Sirk. An indication of his enthusiasm for Hitchcock was his reputation for conducting tours for visiting friends, associates, and filmmakers of the locations around San Francisco used by Hitchcock while filming Vertigo (1958), and for signing his reviews under the pen-name Scotty Ferguson, the so-named protagonist of this renowned film. In 1986, Sonbert gave a lecture at the Pacific Film Archive, in which he spoke of the "schizophrenic split" in Marnie between "images of /en/closure and escape", representing the interplay between male domination and female independence. Sonbert paralleled these conceits in his own film, A Woman's Touch. -- Jon Gartenberg

Eyetoon "The sea, tranquil and violent, is the ultimate symbol for Jerry Abrams' EYETOON and the ultimate equivalent to making love -- his concern in this short and visually dazzling film. Abrams contrasts the rushing faces of New York and a highway juggernaut with the peaceful joining of bodies in a Gjon Mili-like stroboscopic sequence -- always with a burbling, flashing maelstrom of emotions underlying and double-exposing with the bodies. It is visually lovely, technically first-rate and impossible to ignore. The graphic sex is economically handled." -- John L. Wasserman, San Francisco Chronicle

Dig a Hole and Die A suicide patient is forced to dig his own grave at gun point.

Inn for Trouble Peggy Mount and David Kossoff star as Ada and Alf Larkin in this big screen version of the hugely popular 1950s TV comedy. Alf Larkin has finally made good his dream to own a pub. The trouble is, it's got no customers. But leave it to the Larkins to find unorthodox ways to bring in the punters.

Mending the Line Tough as nails, gentle as a poet, and determined as a badger, 90-year-old Frank Moore has always loved to fly fish. Back in 1944, he landed with 150,000 other troops on the beaches of Normandy, France, for the D-Day invasion. Despite the war around him, he couldn’t help but notice the fishing potential of the rivers he and his fellow troops crossed as they made their way into France. Seventy years later, reflecting on his life, Moore is compelled to return to Normandy, this time armed not with a gun but with fly rod and reel. Waller’s inspirational film follows Moore on his arduous physical and emotional journey from home on the North Umpqua River, where for years he has fished and tended the famed Steamboat Inn, to the battlefields of his youth.

land - Baltic Sea Boulde... In late summer 2003, climbers from Britain, Sweden, and Finland descended upon the sleepy archipelago of Aland in the Baltic Sea to discover for themselves, its combination of spectacularly beautiful scenery and array of climbing problems. Baltic Sea Bouldering presents an insight into how climbers tackle this fresh and exciting bouldering destination. What we receive is a fascinating look at how some of Europe's best climbers tackle an unclimbed highball project that stretches mental strength to the limits.

Last of the Badmen Chicago detectives in the 1880s head west to find the killers of their colleague.

American Lawless The year is 2112. The United States is a divided country recovering from the results of a second civil war. The law is broken. States have reverted back to individual territories. Yet all this is but a mere backdrop. Our story focuses on Luke, the former leader of a gang of ruthless marauders known as the American Lawless. After an epiphany, Luke decides to turn legit and betrays his men by turning them over to the authorities. But vengeance comes swiftly when the gang escapes and comes looking for Luke and his wife, Rose. Will Luke be able to save Rose from the wrath of the American Lawless? Or will she be the price he pays?

Fr immer ein Mrder - Der... At the beginning of 2000, the young commissioner Yvonne Weber moved from Frankfurt am Main to Eisenach. Together with the local colleague Frank Wolf, she is to review an unresolved murder case from the GDR era. The investigation team encounters inconsistencies in the file and it becomes clear that there is no interest in truth-clarifying the Eisenach department and the prosecutor's office in Gotha.