Premiere help plz plz plz

Hi ppl
Im new to this forum and in my dyer search for help you guys seem to be very helpful to other users, and normally im not one to ask for help but today im really struggling! My problem is this:-
I have a .avi file that i want to edit on Premiere 6.5. Its an original film that i want to chop up and experiment with, so I import it into premiere but when it renders I just have a single image (not a moving image) and the sound does not work either, however everything is ok in MS Movie Maker (obviously I dont want to have to use MSMM)can anybody help me out with this plz. Cheers ppl