Harmony Week International Film Festival

20 - 25 March 2006

OPENING NIGHT*

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (2004)
DIRECTOR: Walter Salles
RATED: M (Adventure/Biography/Drama)
COUNTRY: USA/Germany/UK/Argentina/Chile/Peru/France
LANGUAGE: Spanish
TIME: 7.00pm (128 minutes)
ADMISSION: Special Invitation Only
PLOT: The Motorcycle Diaries is a movie based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he, and best friend Alberto Granado, had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s. Beautiful imagery.

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004)
DIRECTOR: Yimou Zhang
RATED: M (Action/Drama/Romance)
COUNTRY: China
LANGUAGE: Mandarin
TIME: 10.00am (118 minutes)
ADMISSION: FREE
PLOT: Unlike Hero, Zhang's previous stab at swordplay cinema, House of Flying Daggers is not an epic, but an intimate love story about people who will gladly throw honour and duty out the window for love. Gorgeous art direction and costumes, and a glorious style that's painterly in its static beauty.

CRASH (2004)
DIRECTOR: Paul Haggis
RATED: M (Crime/Drama/Mystery)
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 7.00pm (113 minutes)
ADMISSION: $5.00
PLOT: Several stories interweave during two days in Los Angeles involving a collection of inter-related characters, a black police detective with a drugged out mother and a thieving younger brother, two car thieves who are constantly theorizing on society and race, the distracted district attorney and his irritated and pampered wife, a racist veteran cop (caring for a sick father at home) who disgusts his more idealistic younger partner, a successful black Hollywood director and his wife who must deal with racist cop, a Persian immigrant father who buys a gun to protect his shop, a Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter who is afraid of bullets, and more.

THE KEYS TO THE HOUSE (2004)
DIRECTOR: Gianni Amelio
RATED: PG (Drama/Family)
COUNTRY: Italy
LANGUAGE: Italian
TIME: 10.00am (105 minutes)
ADMISSION: FREE
PLOT: The film tells the story of Gianni who has never seen his disabled son Paolo before. Fate makes them meet; Gianni accompanies his son to Germany where he can follow a new therapy. It is also a trip where the young father tries to catch up with the relationship with his son. In hospital Gianni meets a woman who also has a disabled daughter; a woman who teaches him about accepting differences. The Keys to the House, packed with reality and humanity, has the goal of showing problems the way they are, without exaggerations.

MONSIEUR IBRAHIM ET LES FLEURS DU CORAN (2003)
DIRECTOR: Francois Dupeyron
RATED: M (Drama)
COUNTRY: France
LANGUAGE: French/Arabic
TIME: 7.00pm (95 minutes)
ADMISSION: $5.00
PLOT: Starring the legendary Omar Sharif, Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran tells the story of Momo, a young Jewish boy growing up without a mother and with a father afflicted by crippling depression. Momo is fascinated by an elderly Muslim man, Ibrahim (Sharif), who runs a grocery store at the corner. Their relationship develops and soon Momo feels closer to Ibrahim than to his father. When the boy's father commits suicide, Ibrahim adopts Momo and both go on a journey to Turkey, Ibrahim's homeland.

BUNTY AUR BABLI (2005)
DIRECTOR: Shaad Ali Sahgal
RATED: PG (Adventure)
COUNTRY: India
LANGUAGE: Hindi
TIME: 10.00am (170 minutes)
ADMISSION: FREE
PLOT: Two small-town nobodies, Rakesh and Vimmi, launch onto the fast track to fame and fortune after they meet and reinvent themselves as Bunty and Babli in this full-scale hilarious musical caper film!

A TOUCH OF SPICE (2003)
DIRECTOR: Tassos Boulmetis
RATED: M (Comedy/Drama)
COUNTRY: Greece
LANGUAGE: Greek/Turkish/English
TIME: 7.00pm (108 minutes)
ADMISSION: $5.00
PLOT: The film tells the story of Fanis, a young Greek boy, who grows up to become an excellent cook, using his cooking skills to spice up the lives of those around him. 35 years later he leaves Athens and travels back to his birthplace of Istanbul to reunite with his grandfather and his first love; he travels back only to realise that he forgot to put a little bit of spice in his own life. Although cooking is the main theme of the film, there is a serious story behind all the gastronomy.

HOTEL RWANDA (2004)
DIRECTOR: Terry George
RATED: M (Drama)
COUNTRY: UK/Italy/South Africa
LANGUAGE: English/French
TIME: 10.00am (121 minutes)
ADMISSION: FREE
PLOT: Ten years ago some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda, and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees, by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages.

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (2004)
DIRECTOR: Walter Salles
RATED: M (Adventure/Biography/Drama)
COUNTRY: USA/Germany/UK/Argentina/Chile/Peru/France
LANGUAGE: Spanish
TIME: 7.00pm (128 minutes)
ADMISSION: $5.00
PLOT: The Motorcycle Diaries is based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he, and best friend Alberto Granado, had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s. Beautiful imagery.

BABAKIUERIA (1986)
DIRECTOR: Don Featherstone
RATED: PG (Mockumentary/Comedy/Short)
COUNTRY: Australia
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: Matinee 2.30pm (29 minutes)
ADMISSION: $5.00
PLOT: The film provides an alternative history of Australia, depicting what it might have been like for the European indigenous population of Australia, if Aboriginal colonial culture had arrived with the First Fleet and assumed a dominant position. Using the codes and conventions of a current affair television programme, Babakiueria does not only parody the genre itself, but also white people's attitude and thuggery towards the indigenous society by effectively delivering a satirical look at racial stereotypes.

THE WEEPING CAMEL (2003)
DIRECTOR: Byambasuren Davaa, Luigi Falorni
RATED: PG (Documentary/Drama)
COUNTRY: Germany/Mongolia
LANGUAGE: Mongolian
TIME: Followes on from Babakiueria (87 minutes)
ADMISSION: Two movies for the price of one!
PLOT: A family of nomadic shepherds assists the births of their camel herd. Despite the efforts of the shepherds, one of the mothers rejects the newborn, refusing it her milk and her motherly love. When any hope seems to have vanished, the nomads send two young boys on a journey through the desert... The movie effortlessly blends drama, nature documentary, and ethnographic theme in a single film. Visually enchanting, The Weeping Camel speaks to the very nature of love - the baby camel cannot survive without his mother, just as no animal or person can.