it was imovie 2.0.1 under macOS 9.0.4. the application bombed, afterwards the project did no longer recognize it's clips, except for two that were obviously corrupt. imovie was crashing again after trying to import any of the unrecognized but previously used clips.
it's too late to recover anything. i've upgraded imovie and macos and started from scratch.
thanx for your interest
couzteau