What We Do in the Shadows - kiwi spotting in Berlin

I went to the cinema for the first time in aaaaaaaages last Saturday night! It was my first Kino experience outside of New Zealand, according to my memory at least. 

I went to see the original language screening of 'What We Do in the Shadows' - a New Zealand "documentary" following the occupants of a Wellington flat, who just so happen to be vampires! The directors Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi were there to introduce the film and also came out for a Q&A after the screening.

It was a small cinema in Kreuzberg called Moviemento, I got a beer + popcorn combo. They offer sweet, salty or mixed popcorn flavours which was new to me, I went with the classic salty, though perhaps next time I will branch out. Enough of that boring stuff - the film: I love kiwi comedy, so I may be biased here, but the film was pretty hilarious. Right down to the cheesy "What are we?" "We're werewolves, not swear-wolves" I had seen in the trailer. There was one part in which it was explained that one of the vampires used to be a Nazi vampire, which caused a little hush over the audience, one doesn't feel entirely comfortable laughing at Nazi jokes in Berlin I suppose, nobody appeared to be offended though, I think it was just out of respect.

Afterward the Q&A took a while to warm up, but the directors carried on the idea that it was a documentary, talking about how many interns had been sacrificed to the vampires etc. I asked if they thought there was something special about Wellington that drew the vampires in, or if they had found large populations of vampires in other NZ cities as well, they said that the vampires had tried out Hamilton for a while, but there weren't enough virgins there, makes sense. 

I was expecting to bump into a few kiwis there, but if there were any there they weren't making themselves known. I have been really missing New Zealand lately, I watched a documentary episode about the kākāpō, and felt really far away. Anyway, Disney has announced that they have begun production on a new Disney princess film to be released in late 2016, and that Taika Waititi is involved in the script writing. The details that have been released are that the main character, Moana Waialiki, is to be the first Polynesian Disney princess. She teams up with the demi-god Maui as she navigates her way through the Pacific ocean. I hope she goes to New Zealand! I hope they include a bunch of the back story of Maui and some of the other legends we learn about in the South Pacific. I'm excited to see it, I never thought I would see a Disney film set so close to my part of the world.