The five guide for the weekend

Five movies you'd only ever see at the film festival

1. Open Hearts (Denmark): Cars crash, one person paralysed, another traumatised, fiance of victim seeks solace with the husband of the other driver. Could have been Coro St but it's two hours in Danish with subtitles.

2. 10 (France/Iran): Takes place entirely in a car driving through Tehran, the camera fixed to the dashboard - facing inward. "A revelation of starker, simpler, richer possibilities" apparently.

3. Noi Albinoi (Iceland/Germany): Title character is a bald, lanky albino living in a remote fjord with his grandmother. Father an alcoholic, mother gone, he sends a tape-recorder to school instead of himself and broods in his basement. Music by slowblow.

4. Tishe! (Russia): Almost dialogue-free, this is the camera pointed out the film-maker's window of his St Petersburg flat. For a year. Edited to 82 minutes fortunately.

5. Women's Prison (Iran): As the title says, portraits of a warden and an inmate in a crowded prison. Crime, corruption, drug addiction and so on, which should cheer you up if you are bemoaning your lot in life. In Farsi, subtitled.

* The 35th International Film Festival opens today at the Civic.

Five galleries

1. Aotea Art Gallery Aotea Centre. New Zealand Chinese Arts Exhibition: Around 70 artworks and an opportunity for greater understanding.

2. John Leech Gallery Khartoum Place. Mk II, by Lyonel Grant, highly stylised carved works, drawings and cast glass.

3. Milford Galleries 26 Kitchener St. New work by Simon Edwards, Damien Kurth and Grant Whibley, whose three huge birds are surreal and full of character.

4. Lane Gallery 12 O'Connell St. In Search of Home: multimedia study project from Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

5. Judith Anderson Gallery 28 Lorne St. Group show with Mary McIntyre, Phill Rooke, Jacquie Ure, J.S. Parker, Viky Garden, Fran Marno.

Five bars to try

1. Queen's Head 396 Queen St: Step back in time to the comfort of ye olde English pub. Recommended to homesick Britons and anyone who fancies a good nosh with their beer.

2. Nikau Club 473 Scenic Drive, Waiatarua: The perfect place to stop for a drink after a long, windblown walk along a West Coast beach. On weekend evenings, this bar with a very glamourous view has been known to come alive with all sorts of special functions.

3. The Pinnacle Club 24 St Benedicts St, Newton: A strange mixture of rather splendid historic building and old school pub - complete with old-fashioned prices.

4. Planet Bar 6 Osbourne St, Newmarket: Lounge on leather sofas, play pool, try your moves on the dancefloor or sing karaoke in a special room.

5. 420 Karangahape Rd, City: Get down and dirty to the latest hip-hop beats at this friendly yet sophisticated nightclub.

Five videos/dvds

1. Far From Heaven: A brilliant homage to 1950s domestic melodramas with a modern sensibility and great performances from Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid.

2. The Ring: Hollywood remake of Japanese cult horror about a videotape which, once seen, guarantees death in one week. With Martin Henderson and Naomi Watts. A superior dose of the creeps.

3. The Quiet American: Based on the Graham Greene thriller, set in Vietnam in 1952, with Michael Caine superb as the Brit journalist whose relationship with a local woman is shaken by the arrival of the "quiet American" (Brendan Fraser) and the escalating war.

4. Adaptation: Being John Malkovich makers return with another metaphysical mind-twister which features Nicolas Cage, at his best for ages in two roles. Clever, hilarious and poignant.

5. Analyze That: The sequel to the hit mafioso-gets-therapy comedy with Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal back as The Mob Couple.

Five albums

1. McKay, McKay (Go Beat): A voice which recalls a past soul era over scratchy, crackling, inside-out grooves from Portishead's Geoff Barrow, and consistently impressive songwriting make this a contender for soul and debut album of the year.

2. The Kills, Keep on Your Mean Side (Liberation/In Music): Yet another garage rock double-act they may be, but this American-English boy-girl duo's debut is oddly seductive and wickedly good.

3. Bruce Cockburn, You've Never Seen Everything (Shock): The Canadian folk-poet's brooding baritone and exceptional guitar work are distilled into a Joni Mitchell groove-oriented style. A late-career surprise.

4. Various, Pie Cart Rock'n'Roll (Zerox): Excellent collection of primeval backbeat rock'n'roll by locals who could echo like Elvis and hammer a piano like Jerry Lee. But also, where else to hear Haka Boogie?

5. The Thorns, The Thorns (Columbia): Powerpop king Matthew Sweet teams up with fellow singer-songwriters Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins for an album that's an exercise in 60s Californian pop classicism.