ImagiNATIVE Festival

Last week we were invited to the opening night of the ImagiNATIVE Festival in Toronto.  It's a festival which celebrates art created by native peoples from around the World.  By a stroke of luck, the opening night movie was Boy by Taika Waititi.  Fantastic movie - had seen it before but it was great to see it in one of Toronto's lovely old theatres, packed with 900+ people who were really enthusiastic, cheering and clapping and laughing.  The atmosphere was great.  

After the movie there was a Q&A session with Taika who was very down to earth and humble.  We got to meet him and I took Andy's photo with him.

We were also invited to the after party.  Strange coincidence, we were standing outside with a friend who got us the tickets and another (Kiwi) friend walked passed.  He had come down to see his mate Taika so we went to the party together, got to chat some more to Taika and had a really great night, returning home after 1am (and on a school night).  It makes you realise how incredibly small New Zealand is.  We never, ever run into anyone we know on the streets of Toronto and here we were, running into one of the very few friends we have and he happened to know the writer, director and one of the main characters of the movie we had seen.  

If you haven't seen this movie, make a point of seeing it.  It's really great.  By the way, the house featured in the movie is Taika's grandmother's house and it's filmed in the small town where he grew up.  He did make it clear however that it's not a biography.