Dianna Fuemana returns home for landmark artist residency in Niue

Award-winning Niuean-New Zealand writer and filmmaker Dianna Fuemana is returning to Niue for a six-week artist residency to develop a major new screenplay and work with local youth.

Fifteen years after her play, Birds, debuted at the Niue Cultural Festival, Fuemana is returning to the Rock as the 2026 Niue Artist in Residence to adapt the work for screen in what she describes as a "full-circle" moment.

Following its 2011 debut, Birds travelled to the 11th Festival of Pacific Arts in the Solomon Islands and later to stages in Auckland and Wellington.

Speaking about her residency, Fuemana said in a statement that she is grateful for the opportunity to return to the place that shaped her work.

“Fakaue lahi mahaki for this opportunity,” Fuemana said. “Birds was first performed in Niue, and returning to develop it as a screenplay feels like a full-circle moment.

“This will give me time to obsess and revitalise the story, draw inspiration from my people and their place, and allow those connections to shape the work in a new form.”

Fuemana is widely recognised as a pioneering Pacific voice in theatre and film, credited with helping bring Niuean and New Zealand-born experiences to the professional stage.

Her breakthrough one-woman show, Mapaki, which toured in Aotearoa, the United States, and Greece, established her as one of the Pasifika playwrights of her generation.

In 1999, she was nominated at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards for Outstanding New Writer and Most Promising Female Actress of the Year.

A University of Auckland Master of Creative and Performing Arts honors graduate, Fuemana penned The Packer during her studies - a work that eventually reached the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Since receiving the Script to Screen’s US Screenwriting Scholarship to New York’s 'Killer Films,' her screen career has soared. Her debut short, Sunday Fun Day, won the Sun Jury Prize in Toronto in 2017, and she later wrote and directed the Niuean chapter of the acclaimed collaborative feature Vai.

Most recently, the feature film Mysterious Ways, which she co-wrote, hit Aotearoa cinemas in 2023.

While developing her screenplay, Fuemana will also lead workshops for local students during her residency.

She plans to share practical skills and encourage young Niuean storytellers to reflect on their own lives on stage and screen.

The residency is part of a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Government of Niue and Creative New Zealand under the Pacific Arts Strategy, designed to strengthen cultural exchange and creative development.

Niue’s Minister of Social Services, Sonya Talagi said in a statement that the programme supports both artists and the local community.

“Her [Fuemana] experience and standing reflect the strength of the programme and what it continues to offer for practitioners across the diaspora,” Talagi said.

Jannita Pilisi, member of Creative New Zealand’s Arts Council, added that Fuemana’s selection is a testament to her long-standing career as a creative.

“She has a strong understanding of storytelling and how it shifts across different forms, and this residency offers space for her to keep developing that work in a new context as well as share her knowledge.”