Vilsoni Hereniko
Vilsoni Hereniko is the first indigenous Fijian (from Rotuma) to make a feature film. Titled The Land Has Eyes (2004), his first feature premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was Fiji’s official submission to the Academy Awards (2005). It won several awards, including Best Dramatic Feature at the Toronto Imaginative Film and Media Arts Festival (2004). He has also made several documentaries and two short narrative films. A stage director and playwright who has written more than a dozen plays, he is also a full professor at the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawaii. He was also a recipient of the Asia Pacific Screen Lab (2015).
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.