The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey world premiere in Wellington (and a couple of other images too...)

Cast of Frantic Assembly / National Theatre of Scotland's production, Beautiful Burnout, met up with guests from The Hobbit at a function after their opening night at the New Zealand International Arts Festival in Wellington. (© Robert Catto / robertcatto.com)

 

It seems like a long time since The Hobbit cast paid a visit to the NZ International Arts Festival, but it was great to see so many of them back in Wellington this past week for the world premiere of all their hard work!  And with a couple of friends playing dwarves in the film, and a few others involved in other aspects of the production, I was pleased to wind up working in the press pit once again for the red carpet street party here in town!

As a bit of a Neil Finn fan, it was great to have him and his band doing a concert pretty much right in front of me for an hour or so, too...

For that matter, it feels like a REALLY long time since the opening of the Roxy Cinema!

Actors, directors, designers and guests gathered to celebrate the opening of the new Roxy Cinema in the Wellington suburb of Miramar.  On the site of the original Capitol Cinema which opened in 1924 and closed forty years later, the completely rebuilt 'picture palace' is much larger than the original, and houses two theatres, a cafe and bar.  Guests at the opening included Sir Peter Jackson, Sir Richard Taylor and Lady Tania Rodger, Jamie Selkirk, and many of the cast and crew of The Hobbit - Sir Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, and James Nesbitt included. (© Robert Catto / www.catto.co.nz)

(For the curious photographers - I did take most of the premiere images with my Canon dSLRs, but I kept the Fuji X-Pro 1 with me as well and grabbed a few with that.  All the Embassy photos before the premiere are with the Fuji as well - and the one from the Roxy is with my X100 when it was just new!)