Tavu'i Dr Marina Alofagia McCartney (Sāmoa: Sāmoeleoi, Sālilomaiava; England: Geordie, Romanichal) is an award-winning screenwriter, director and scholar specialising in Moana (Pacific) film theory. She is the first Moana screenwriter and director in the world to complete a PhD specialising in Moana film theory. Her research articulates a distinctly Moana cinematic language, grounding film theory in a Moana worldview and theorising these concepts from within creative practice. Her scholarship and films contribute to global Indigenous cinema, offering a framework for how Pacific stories are crafted, held and witnessed on screen.

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She is one of the most credited TV screenwriters for prime-time television, including My Life is Murder, Blue Murder Motel, and The Brokenwood Mysteries. She wrote and directed the Samoan vignette for the award-winning portmanteau film Vai (2019), which opened the NATIVe programme at the Berlinale and screened at SXSW, Edinburgh, Sydney and Melbourne. Her short film The Return (2026) is on the festival circuit and has screened at Māoriland Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, LA Asian Pacific Film Festival and the NZ International Film Festival (2026).

She taught and convened courses at the University of Auckland from 2013 to 2019 under Toeolesulusulu Professor Damon Salesa and Fonoiā Professor Jemaima Tiatai-Siau. Since 2019, she has taught screenwriting workshops, mentored emerging writers and designed development workshops and programmes for industry organisations including Script to Screen, Pacific Island Screen Artists (PISA), Women in Film & Television (WIFT) and Someday Stories. Over the same period, she has worked as a script, cultural, and funding assessor for the NZFC, NZ On Air, NZWG, Script to Screen, and others, completing hundreds of assessments across short, feature, and long-form projects. She has also received the top cultural Blues awards at both the University of Auckland and AUT.