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Fritz Lang's HANGMEN ALSO DIE is a grimly atmospheric noir thriller and a vehement commentary on Nazi terror and betrayal. The film focuses on a gun man hiding out with the Resistance in Prague after the 1942 assassination of Hitler henchman Reinhard Heydrich, known as the Hangman. Loosely based on a true story, Lang's film is a terse and melodramatic portrait of mass resistance and Nazi brutality. From the assassination scene--reminiscent of TOUCH OF EVIL--in which Franz Svoboda (Brian Donlevy) gets help from the underground resistance in order to narrowly escape being captured by the Nazis, to the heart-wrenching and suspenseful showdowns between the resistance and the Nazis, HANGMEN ALSO DIE is tightly structured and elegantly filmed masterpiece.Hiding out in the home of the Novotny family, Svoboda risks the lives of everyone he meets, including Professor Novotny and his daughter Mascha. When the Nazis gather up all of the writers and intellectuals in town, including Professor Novotny, Mascha threatens to turn Svoboda over the the authorities, but the resistance intervenes with a last-ditch scheme to frame a Czech collaborator for the Hangman's murder. The suspense builds as day by day the Nazis continue to murder more Czechs and the Gestapo gets closer to finding the identity of the assassin.DVD Features:Region 1Full Frame - 1.33:1Audio: Mono - EnglishKeep CaseInteractive Features: Scene Access Interactive Menus

Director Michael Powell (PEEPING TOM) made this criminally overlooked comic thriller in 1940, when WWII had ravaged much of England. What makes this remarkable is that the film is set in 1939 during a blackout and yet Powell makes the film a lighthearted thriller even though his country was still in the midst of a horrible war. However, this is not what makes the film so remarkable. A Hitchcockian brew of international intrigue, lengthy chase scenes, and virtuoso cinematography, the film follows the kidnapping of Danish sea captain (Veidt) and his mysterious and beautiful passenger (Hobson) by Nazis operating out of a Soho basement. Escaping from their captors, the unlikely pair are chased around London by the Nazis through increasingly bizarre situations. A beautiful film whose vision of London as a dark labyrinth is as striking and entertaining, CONTRABAND is a hugely enjoyable entertainment as well as a reflection on a very dark period in English history.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseInteractive Features: Scene Access Interactive Menus

Lynne Ramsey's bleak, beautifully photographed debut unflinchingly portrays life in a Glasgow housing project during the 1973 garbageworkers strike as seen through the eyes of 12-year-old James Gillespie (William Eadie, in a soulful debut). As the film opens, James is playing with a friend near a filthy canal behind the projects when his friend tragically falls into the water and drowns. James chooses not to tell anyone that he saw the boy die, knowing that he will be implicated. This secret, along with his increasing lack of communication with his drunken football-loving father, causes James to become increasingly withdrawn, fantasizing about his family moving to a newly constructed apartment complex at the city limits on the edge of a beautiful, golden field of grain. As the garbage piles up and rats take up residency around the complex as if they were new tenants, James finds temporary solace in his friendships with Kenny, an odd boy who loves animals, and Margaret Anne, a teenage misfit who lets the local boys use her body as they wish.While undeniably grim, RATCATCHER manages to combine unusually rich imagery and spare use of dialogue to create a realistic portrait of a simultaneously beautiful and cruel world. Punctuated with unexpected humor, Ramsey's film is subtle and rewarding.DVD Features:Region 1Keep CaseAnamorphic Widescreen - 1.85Single Side - Dual LayerAdditional Release Material: Bonus Films (Shorts by Lynne Ramsay) - 1. GASMAN




























2. KILL THE DAY




























3. SMALL DEATHS Interview - 1. Lynne Ramsay - DirectorText/Galleries: Photo Gallery - 1. Stills

Living together in a claustrophobic home in a rundown part of Tianjin, China, stepsisters Tao Lan (Lin Liu) and Yu Xiaoquin (Yun Li) are forced to share everything, yet they couldn't have less in common. Tao Lan is a free spirit who is proud of her working-class roots, while studious Yu Xiaoquin is attractive and sophisticated; their antagonism is heightened by favoritism from their parents. When Yu Xiaoquin frames Tao Lan for something she didn't do, a fight between the girls has tragic results, and Tao Lan is forced to pay the price. Released from prison 17 years later to spend the New Year with her family, the now-grown Tao Lan finds herself unable to cope with a much-changed outside world. She befriends a female prison guard when her family fails to pick her up, and the two embark upon a journey to reunite the prisoner with her estranged parents. Directed by the acclaimed sixth-generation Chinese auteur Zhang Yuan (EAST PALACE, WEST PALACE), SEVENTEEN YEARS is both a scathing indictment of the political and penal system in China, and a moving depiction of a poor family fraught by tragedy, circumstance, and violence.DVD Features:Region (unknown)Keep CaseFull Frame - 1.33

Director Xie Fei presents a touching tale of a woman attempting to carve out a life for herself against seemingly insurmountable odds in WOMAN SESAME OIL MAKER. With a hopeless alcoholic for a husband, and a mentally challenged son, she faces daily challenges that make her life increasingly difficult. Fortunately she runs her own business as a sesame oil manufacturer, and although the hours are long, she begins to enjoy some unprecedented success, and looks forward to the future. Sadly everything proves much harder than she anticipated, leading to a powerful portrait of a woman striving to lift herself out of the mire.DVD Features:Region (unknown)Keep CaseFull Frame - 1.33

Set among the urban grime of working class Istanbul, JOURNEY TO THE SUN focuses on two Turkish men on opposite sides of the political fence who become fast friends while escaping a flood of drunken, angry football hooligans. Young Mehmet (Newroz Sahin) is generally conservative, while Berzan (Nazmi Qirix) seems invested in the hunger strikes and Kurdish rebellion in the east. During a routine roadblock, Mehmet is mistakenly arrested for gun possession, and his dark skin makes him look like a Kurdish rebel to his interrogators. After days of questions and beatings, he wanders home dazed and broken through the industrial underbelly of the city. Arriving in his smoky, cramped flat, Mehmet discovers the police have marked his door with a red X, and he is kicked out of his apartment. Berzan comes to help, constantly skipping him around to new jobs and new beds to avoid the rebels' scarlet letter. As Mehmet moves from town to town, his new girlfriend, the laundress Arzu (Mizgin Kapazan), comes with him and their young love begins to blossom. However, their union is short-lived, as tragedy forces Mehmet to leave her and begin moving again. He changes his haircolor to a daybreak yellow with a can of spraypaint, and with this new disguise, Mehmet heads in the direction of the sunrise, by truck, tram and carriage, hauling with him a very heavy burden.DVD Features:Region (unknown)Keep CaseFull Frame - 1.33

Shot on digital video, this powerful drama addresses the universal issue of homelessness with unflinching honesty. When Christine (Sara Wilcox) and her thirteen-year-old daughter Tessa (Jessica White) are evicted from their home, they are forced to relocate to the streets of Santa Barbara. The beautiful weather and landscape of Santa Barbara only add to their despair. At school, Tessa is forced to pretend she is from as affluent a home as the children around her, putting a strain on the young girl that threatens to push her over the edge. Director Peter Hyoguchi's debut feature is a profound, eye-opening drama.DVD Features:Region 1Keep Case

Take two very naive, very young French girls--one a thin 15-year-old, Elena (Roxane Mesquida), and the other her fat 12-year-old sister, Anais (Anais Reboux). Picture them as lambs. Add a manipulative older Italian boy, Fernando (Libero De Rienzo). Picture him as the wolf. Witness from close range as the one of the lambs (the thin one) is devoured by the wolf as the other lamb (the fat one) watches in pain but does nothing. The result is FAT GIRL, Catherine Breillat's intense, perplexing, suffocating, grim, terrifying, sickening, dark, plotting depiction of teenage loss of innocence. Sinister is what the Italian boy calls what he does to the French girl. Proof of love is how the thin girl justifies it. The fat girl, Anais, responds by sitting on the beach in her new dress and letting the surf wash up on her as she softly sings sad songs about boredom and death. Later, staring into the mirror, alone together, eye to eye, cheek to cheek, unblinking, the fat and thin sisters calmly share their most hateful feelings for each other. But nothing prepares the viewer for the final blow of the film, which sneaks up with a ferocity that pales the wolf-lamb scenario. Not a pretty picture, Breillat's shockingly realistic work features a fruity color scheme and an optimistic soundtrack that perfects the film's intended confusion of mood and message.DVD Features:Region (unknown)Keep CaseWidescreen - 1.85Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 - French DTS 5.1 - FrenchAdditional Release Material: Trailers - 1. French Trailer






2. U.S. Theatrical Trailer Featurette - 1. The Making Of FAT GIRLText/Photo Gallery: Additional Text - 1. Essay by Ginette Vincendeau











2. Interview with Catherine Breillat from French film magazine Positif