Disney’s Moana premiered on Monday night in Los Angeles, shining a light on its many Kiwi contributors, including Te Vaka’s Opetaia Foa’i who provided the majority of the soundtrack for Hollywood’s latest high budget, full feature animation.

Foa’i worked on the sound of of Moana with award-winning all-round talent Lin-Manuel Miranda. Part of it was reportedly written in Waihi in the Coromandel.

The movie also features Temuera Morrison as Moana’s father Chief Tui Waialiki, Jemaine Clement as crab villain Tamatoa, Rachel House as Gramma Tala, Oscar Kightley as ‘fisherman’, and we can claim at least part of Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock, who lived in Grey Lynn before moving on to Hawaii. Once a Kiwi…

The NZ premiere will be held at Auckland’s Sylvia Park on December 13 with most of the film’s international big names attending.