Fiji

Fiji

Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...

 only began producing its own feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

s in 2004, and has produced just one to date. Vilsoni Hereniko

Vilsoni Hereniko

Vilsoni Hereniko is a Fiji Islander playwright, film director and academic. He was the writer and director of Fiji's first ever feature film, The Land Has Eyes .-Biography:...

's The Land Has Eyes

The Land Has Eyes

The Land Has Eyes is a 2004 Fiji Islander film written and directed by Vilsoni Hereniko. It is the first ever feature film from Fiji.-Plot:...

(2004) is set in Rotuma

Rotuma

Rotuma is a Fijian dependency, consisting of Rotuma Island and nearby islets. The island group is home to a small but unique indigenous ethnic group which constitutes a recognizable minority within the population of Fiji, known as "Rotumans"...

 and stars indigenous Rotuman

Rotuman people

The Rotuman people are the indigenous inhabitants of Rotuma, a small island group forming part of the Republic of Fiji. The island itself is a cultural melting pot at the crossroads of the Micronesian, Melanesian and Polynesian divisions of the Pacific Ocean, and due to the seafaring nature of...

 actress Sapeta Taito

Sapeta Taito

Sapeta Sokag‘aitu Taito is a Fiji Islander actress. She played the lead role in Fiji's first feature film, The Land Has Eyes, in 2004.-Biography:Born in Suva, Fiji, Taito moved to Rotuma at a young age...

 in her début role, alongside New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 actress Rena Owen

Rena Owen

Rena Owen is a New Zealand actress in film, theatre and television. She is of Maori, Torres Strait Islander and Pakeha descent. Owen is most well known in the lead role of Beth in the cult classic movie Once Were Warriors directed by Lee Tamahori...

.

2004 was also the year in which the film Reel Paradise (United States

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

) was produced. The film depicts the true story of an American, John Pierson

John Pierson

John Pierson may refer to:*John Pierson , American independent filmmaker*John Pierson , writer for Wall Street Journal*John Pierson , American guitarist*Jack Pierson, photographer and artist...

, setting up a cinema to show films free of charge in Fiji. Boot Camp

Boot Camp (film)

Boot Camp is a 2007 psychological suspense thriller feature film written by Agatha Dominik and John Cox and directed by Christian Duguay.The film's working title was Straight Edge and was shot in Fiji as the first film to utilize the southwest Pacific Ocean island country's five-year-old incentive...

(2007), starring Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis

Milena "Mila" Kunis is an American actress. Her work includes the role of Jackie Burkhart on the TV series That '70s Show and the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated series Family Guy...

 and Peter Stormare

Peter Stormare

is a Swedish film, stage, voice and television actor as well as a theatrical director, playwright and musician.- Early life :...

, is partly set in Fiji, but is not a Fiji-made film. Although Fiji has only ever produced one film, the Fiji Audio Visual Commission aims to attract foreign film-makers and incite them to use the country as a setting. The Commission stated in July 2008 that it hoped Fiji would become known as "Bulawood", the Hollywood of the South Seas.

Fiji has a large ethnic Indian

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 minority, and Bollywood

Bollywood

Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 films are popular both among Indo-Fijians and indigenous Fijians

Fijian people

Fijian people are the major indigenous people of the Fiji Islands, and live in an area informally called Melanesia. The Fijian people are believed to have arrived in Fiji from western Melanesia approximately 3,500 years ago, though the exact origins of the Fijian people are unknown...

, with some being dubbed

Dubbing (filmmaking)

Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...

 in Fijian

Fijian language

Fijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language...

.