Stallone Vaiaoga-Ioasa (SQS)

After getting a law and arts degree at Auckland University, Samoan-Kiwi Stallone Vaiaoga-Ioasa opted to pursue a career in filmmaking. Utilising a decade's experience making television — including various jobs on Tagata Pasifika — he wrote and directed self-funded movie Three Wise Cousins in 2015. The comedy about a young man learning about Samoan life was a hit. Two more Polynesian comedies followed: Hibiscus and Ruthless, about a woman caught up in romance to her mother's dismay, and Take Home Pay, which sees two Samoans on the trail of stolen money. In 2020 he set out to complete a film in just 30 days: Mama's Music Box.

I set out to make a film that was entertaining. Whether it has artistic merit or critical [acclaim], it doesn't matter. For me, if an audience, in particular a New Zealand Pacific Island audience, sits in there and doesn't laugh, then I've failed. Stallone Vaiaoga-Ioasa on his first movie Three Wise Cousins, Stuff, 3 January 2016