From Carpentry to Cinema: How Reality TV Helped Launch Fiji's First Indigenous Feature Film

A decade ago, Tulia Nacola was a carpenter in Fiji, crafting driftwood chandeliers for resorts along the Coral Coast. Today, she’s a director whose debut feature, *Adi*, is the first film ever shot entirely in the iTaukei language. Her path from woodworking to filmmaking took an unexpected detour through American reality television.

Nacola, 41, had been writing novels about indigenous Fijian life when she shot a short film on a used smartphone in 2024. The response was overwhelming, and she secured funding for a feature. But Fiji’s film industry is still small, and she lacked directing experience. So she reached out to a friend who worked on *Love Island USA* and landed a job dressing sets. For six months, she ran errands by day and quietly studied the production’s inner workings—the hierarchy, the pace, the handling of stressed-out stars. “I had an ulterior motive,” she says. “I wasn’t just there to put up flowers.”

*Adi* premiered to a sold-out crowd in Suva this February and is now being submitted to international festivals. Nearly all of Nacola’s crew had worked on shows like *Survivor* or *Love Island*, using equipment they’d bought off those sets. Her cinematographer, Lanza Coffin, started as a wedding photographer and now runs his own production company after a decade on *Survivor*. “About 60 percent of the crew are Fijian now,” he says. “Key roles that used to go to international staff are filled by locals.”

Reality TV has become a major economic force in Fiji. *Survivor* films two seasons a year in the Mamanuca Islands, injecting an estimated $25 million Fijian dollars annually. *Love Island USA* has shot its last three seasons there. Workers earn around $200 Fijian dollars a day—far above the rural poverty rate of $1.25. For many, it’s a lifeline. “Young men find purpose and direction,” Nacola says. “They can help their families.”

But this boom comes with environmental costs. Fiji is among the nations most vulnerable to climate change. Rising seas and warming waters threaten coral reefs, homes, and even drinking water. Some resorts may lose entire wings to the ocean. The Mamanuca Environmental Society now meets with production teams before filming to ensure they understand the impact. *Survivor* consults with local villages, pays traditional landowners, and selects trees that can regrow if forest is cleared. *Love Island* has cut its carbon emissions by 65 percent by using battery generators and composting food waste.

Tourism makes up 40 percent of Fiji’s GDP, and last year, a record one million visitors arrived. Yet Griffith University professor Susanne Becken warns that constant promotion without managing the carbon footprint is a model that needs to change. “These production companies need to leave something positive behind,” she says.

For Nacola, the reality TV world that helped launch her career remains foreign. She’s never watched an episode of *Love Island*. What matters to her is telling stories that reflect her culture. “Knowing I can tell my own stories grounds me in my culture,” she says. “Fijian culture is often not portrayed at all, or they use artifacts that aren’t even Fijian. It’s a fake world.” Her film, about a woman stepping into a leadership role in a chiefly family, is a step toward changing that.