"Dances in Hong Kong: Boundries Not Included"

Our friend Mani had the premier of her film "Dances in Hong Kong: Boundries not Included" this week  and I have to tell you it's extremely good. "Just like a real one" as we say in Fiji:

It's probably rude to say I'm amazed it's so good, but it seemed such a casual thing at the start. Three years ago, we were working on a script "Mooncakes" with Red Carpet Club when Mani said had an idea for a film of her own, and asked our friend German-Michael if she could borrow him and his camera for a few days. And that's the genesis. Truly.

Yup, Mani made this film with a borrowed camera. Sounds like it should be the start of the biography of a famous film-maker, doesn't it! Initially Michael helped out as cameraperson, but it didn't take long before Mani got confident and started to do it without him, and the film just grew from there.

And then, this week, it had its world premier and everyone was blown away.  "Just like a real one."  As you'd guess, it's about dancing in Hong Kong, but it's really about Hong Kong's cultural fusion, and you have gorgeous sequences of Chinese girls dancing Bollywood and British girls teaching African dance and lots of other unexpected combinations, and Mani, with a great deal of success, puts forward the thesis that Tango grew up in Buernos Aires because it was a place of cultural fusion, and it was highly likely that the similar cultural fusion in Hong Kong would generate it's own genre of dancing.

She included me in the credits along with German-Michael, which was very touching, but I didn't deserve it. My only real role was to say to her constantly "Mani, this is within your scope. You can do it!"  And she could and did, but that was all her own doing! 

Anyway, the film is beautiful and Mani intends now to send it off to various festivals around the world so keep an eye out for it.