On the Sound

White Trash

About the day after a young hustler named CC has died of AIDS. Like him, his pals Casino, Rio and girlfriend Rita, pregnant with his child, are all street prostitutes caught up in high-risk sex and drug-taking in West Hollywood.

The Battle of Algiers

Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.

Dawn of the Dead

During an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter, and his television-executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

Eraserhead

First-time father Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

The Murder of Fred Hampton

Fred Hampton was the leader of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. This film depicts his brutal murder by the Chicago police and its subsequent investigation, but also documents his activities in organizing the Chapter, his public speeches, and the programs he founded for children during the last eighteen months of his life.

Affair in Trinidad

A nightclub singer enlists her brother-in-law to track down her husband's killer.

Working Girls

A lesbian college graduate, trying to bankroll her own photography business, works as a high-priced New York City escort.

Lenny Bruce: Without Tears

The outrageous, groundbreaking comic Lenny Bruce, whose iconoclastic material in a conservative era got him into tragic trouble, is profiled by a close friend, Fred Baker, who prefers to remember the laughs Lenny Bruce's memory evokes instead of the tears. By presenting Bruce's landmark skits on the Steve Allen Show, his failed TV pilot episode and a candid interview with Nat Hentoff, Bruce's genius and anguish show through the dramatic and tragic trajectory of his career from aspiring artist to hunted "lawbreaker".

Doorway to Suspicion

American band-leader in Germany marries girl working for "The Party". She is kidnapped into Eastern Zone, but in return the band-leader kidnaps the girlfriend of a Russian General.

Room Service 75

Feature film.

Events

Sexuality without pretence gives the wallop to Events. A dramatic street story of young runaway flower-kids in the Greenwich Village of 1968, it raises ethical questions while the screen explodes with erotica.

Fred Baker - filmmaker

The house he lived In: A conversation with Fred Baker (1932-2011) filmmaker , director , screenwriter , film producer, actor and jazz musician. A shining example of America's bohemian underground that has been around since the days of Walt Whitman. A sensualist. His favorite topics are sex, art, food and politics. To the rhythm of New York and Lenny Bruce.

Assata aka Joanne Chesimard

Through dramatic re-creation, archival newsreel footage and revealing interviews, director Fred Baker's docudrama explores the controversial murder case centered on Black Panther activist and political exile Assata Shakur. In 1977, Shakur was dubiously convicted for the shooting death of a New Jersey state trooper and was sentenced to life in prison, only to escape two years later and seek refuge in Cuba.

Ray

Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.

Shoot the Piano Player

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.

The Cotton Club

Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

Sharky's Machine

Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.

'Round Midnight

Inside the Blue Note nightclub one night in 1959 Paris, an aged, ailing jazzman coaxes an eloquent wail from his tenor sax. Outside, a young Parisian too broke to buy a glass of wine strains to hear those notes. Soon they will form a friendship that sparks a final burst of genius.

Killing Zoe

Zed is an American vault-cracker who travels to Paris to meet up with his old friend Eric. Eric and his gang have planned to raid the only bank in the city which is open on Bastille day. After offering his services, Zed soon finds himself trapped in a situation beyond his control when heroin abuse, poor planning and a call-girl named Zoe all conspire to turn the robbery into a very bloody siege.

Sweet and Lowdown

In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.

You, the Living

In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket, and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.

Suburban Girl

Publishing assistant Brett Eisenberg wants to be a big-time editor. However, she lacks self-confidence, a problem that isn't helped by her new, overbearing boss. Brett soon enters into a relationship with Archie, an older man who has plenty of his own issues, including alcoholism, diabetes and a difficult relationship with his daughter. Intent on helping Archie get past his problems, she turns to her dying father for advice.

Shadows

The relationship between Lelia, a light-skinned black woman, and Tony, a white man is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh, and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was.

The Color Purple

An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.

The Man with the Golden Arm

When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old drum set, Frankie tries to get honest work as a drummer. But when his former employer and his old drug dealer re-enter his life, Frankie finds it hard to stay clean and eventually finds himself succumbing to his old habits.

New York, New York

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.

Anatomy of a Murder

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

Boléro

Boundary-pushing Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein selects renowned French composer Maurice Ravel to compose the music for her next ballet. Ravel ends up creating his greatest success ever: Boléro.