Nina Nawalowalo

Nina Catharine Nawalowalo is a New Zealand theatre director and co-founder of the contemporary Pacific theatre company The Conch. She is known for directing the stage plays Vula and The White Guitar. The first film she directed A Boy Called Piano - The Story of Fa'amoana John Luafutu won 2022 Montreal Independent Film Festival Best Feature Documentary.

Early life and education Nina Catharine Nawalowalo was born in Paremata, Wellington, New Zealand, in 1963. Her mother was British and her father was Fijian, from the village of Tavuki, on Kadavu Island, and Nawalowalo spent two and a half years living in Fiji before returning to Wellington. She attended Wellington Teachers' College, and was the captain of the New Zealand under-20 basketball team.

In 2002 Nawalowalo co-founded the theatre company The Conch with Tom McCrory. Their productions focus on Pacific stories. The company is based in Wellington and had toured across New Zealand and internationally. Nawalowalo's company provides and promotes access to the arts for Pacifika young people through Conchus Youth.

A long creative collaboration over eight years Nawalowalo has created with the Luafutu family two stage plays, a radio drama and in 2022 a film. The first play was The White Guitar presented in 2015, written by father Fa’amoana John Luafutu and sons Matthias Luafutu and Malo Luafutu aka Scribe and was autobiographical. It had sell-out seasons and an eight-city tour in 2015. A Boy Called Piano is a deeper look into Fa’amoana John Luafutu's childhood in state care and Nawalowalo has directed two stage productions, a radio play and a film based on this. The film was Nawalowalo's first as a director and is called A Boy Called Piano - The Story of Fa'amoana John Luafutu (2021), it won Best Feature Documentary in 2022 at the Montreal Independent Film Festival. A Pacific lens was used in the process to ensure there was trust between Luafutu and Nawalowalo. commissioned by the New Zealand International Arts Festival then toured Fiji and Sydney Festival Duck Death and the Tulip (2014), Edinburgh Fringe Festival A Boy Called Piano - The Story of Fa'amoana John Luafutu (2021), film - directed by Nina Nawalowalo A Boy Called Piano (2022), national tour of Aotearoa

Awards and honours Nawalowalo received the Contemporary Pacific Art Award in 2007 and the Senior Pacific Artist Award in 2017 at the Arts Pasifika Awards.

In the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to theatre and Pacific culture.