Flightless Birds

The New Zealand Film Festival began yesterday, with films showing at The Paramount, The Emassy, The Penthouse, Te Papa Museum, The Film Archive, and City Gallery . Last night, I attended the world premiere of a new Kiwi film directed by Jason Stutter called Predicament. It showed at The Embassy, a grand movie palace built in 1924 which seats 1,500 people. Mr. Sutter introduced the film, and helped kick off the festival. I’ve bought tickets for 12 movies: Winter’s Bone, Four Lions, Strange Powers, Howl, The Wind Journeys, Ajami, Strange Birds of Paradise, The Killer Inside Me, When You’re Strange, I Am Love, and tonight’s film, Animal Kingdom. The festival runs until August 1st.

This first week of school flew by. The university went from being a quiet, empty place to a boisterous multi-cultural learning center bursting with conversation, the sharing of ideas, and the celebration of progress. I split most of my time between my apartment and my office, with side jaunts to the gym. The film postgrads meet every Friday for dinner, and another group of newly arrived university-wide postgrads have a big group meal on Saturdays. I start tutoring Monday, and am preparing for my three sections of 101 now. My supervisors continue to send me theoretical essays dealing with film performance, and I’m already chest-deep into the ocean of Louise Brooks information. It’s been a week of good weather; today the rain came back, and so I plan on staying inside as much as possible this weekend, reading, jotting notes, writing.

I’ve moved from the first floor to the sixth. It’s colder in this room, but I’ve got views, and on sunny afternoons, I take off my clothes and lie on the sunlit floor and read. Last weekend, I hiked up to the Botanical Gardens which border campus. Footpaths snake forested hills, giant ferns tower, and a dormant rose garden promises a spectacular spring. After hiking about, I rode back downtown on the Wellington Cable Car. The cable car opened in 1902, and has gone through a number of renovations since then, but, like the Powell Street cable car in San Francisco, it’s a nostalgic bit of history rather than a quick way to get around.

Some facts: New Zealand is comprised of two islands, with the combined size of Colorado. Wellington, the capital, lies on the southern tip of the north island. A third of New Zealand land is parkland. 24% of families have only one parent. 22% of New Zealand’s population was born overseas. There is no tipping in restaurants or bars. 2.5 of the country’s 4 million people have cars, making it one of the world’s leading countries for car ownership. In order to become a New Zealand citizen, you must swear an oath of loyalty to Queen Elizabeth. New Zealand is part of the Pacific “ring of fire,” and is quite prone to earthquakes. The country generates about 10% of its electricity from volcanic heat. Another 55% of its electricity is generated from hydroelectic dams. Wind-power accounts for less than 5%, though this will increase significantly in the years ahead. By 2025, the plan is that 90% of NZ's electricity will come from renewable sources. The largest city in NZ, Auckland, with 1.5 million citizens, was recently named the world’s 10th most livable city by The Economist. New Zealand has no non-marine native mammals. No squirrels, but also no snakes. When the first settlers arrived, they wrote of hearing birds before they ever saw land. 78% of Kiwis are European descendants, 14% are native Maori, and 8% are Asian. 55% NZ citizens are Christian, 36% say they have no religion, 6% list themselves as “other.” The abundance of birds that once greeted the first settlers has been drastically reduced.