Vilsoni Hereniko is a professor, playwright, and filmmaker, as well as an author of several books, numerous academic articles in referred journals, and a former editor of the award-winning journal “The Contemporary Pacific.” He was a former Director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawaii and the Oceania Center for Arts, Culture, and Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji. His plays, more than a dozen, have been published and performed in the Pacific, including Hawaii, as well as England, Scotland, Copenhagen, Norway, and Belgium. They are also studied in schools and universities in the Pacific and beyond. He is the first Fijian to make a feature film. Titled “The Land Has Eyes”, it premiered at Sundance and was Fiji’s nomination for the Academy Awards in 2005. He has also written and directed two short films, and several documentaries. His most recent film is about climate change and titled “Moana Rua: The Rising of the Sea.” He is now working on his second feature film, an adaptation of a novel set in the Marshall Islands. He has taught at UHManoa for 25 years. Courses he now teaches at the Academy for Creative Media are the following: “Oral Tradition to Screenplay”, “Moving Images of the Pacific Islands,” and “Story and Production.”