Ms Marina Alofagia McCartney

Biography

Marina McCartney holds a Master of Arts in Screen Production with First Class Honours. She is an award-winning filmmaker and her academic areas of interest focus on the representation of Pacific peoples through the mediascape and how this affects identity formation in the diaspora.

Marina is the Vaka Moana Manager and the Undergraduate Adviser for Pacific Studies, Te Wānanga o Waipapa, School of Māori Studies and Pacific Studies. She also co-teaches a UniBound course and coordinates and co-teaches the core stage I courses in Pacific Studies.

Research | Current

• Vaka Moana: Pacific undergraduate academic success
• Pacific filmmaking
• Vai (feature film, in production): writer/director
• The Return (short film, in development): writer/director
• The Return (feature film, in development): writer/director

Teaching | Current

PACIFIC 100 Introduction to Pacific Studies

PACIFIC 105 The Contemporary Pacific

Moana Nui: Our worldview as Maori and Pacific

Vaka Moana (Pacific Studies' undergraduate academic enhancement programme)

Distinctions/Honours

• Melbourne Film Festival Accelerator Lab
• SEED Grant for Innovation in Teaching
• The University of Auckland Alumni Art & Cultural Award
• The University of Auckland Cultural Blues Award
• The University of Auckland Graduate Scholarship
• Pacific Islands Polynesian Education Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship
• The University of Auckland Faculty of Arts Pacific Leadership Award
• The University of Auckland Maori and Pacific Graduate Scholarship
• Kate Edger Educational Charitable Trust Bachelor (Honours) Degree Award

Areas of expertise

• Pacific Studies
• Pacific filmmaking
• Pacific representation on screen
• Representations of the Pacific woman
• Pacific undergraduate academic success
• Directing: narrative short film
• Screenwriting: narrative short film