Nic Puni

Nicole (Nic) Puni is a proud Samoan and Saibai Island creative, born in Wellington, NZ, raised on Awabakal country and is a NIDA recipient of the 2024 Prime Video Scholarship. Nic is a graduate of the Bachelor of Arts: Screen Production at the Australian Film, Televisionand Radio School (AFTRS) and is currently studying NIDA’s Master of Fine Arts Directing, where her theatrical directing debut play, Duplexity will be featured at NIDA’s 2025 Festival of Emerging Artists.

\Nic’s creative skillset, and experience includes directing, writing, producing and editing stories focused on highlighting the voices of women, people of colour, Indigenous Australians, LGBTQIA+ folk, marginalised youth, and everyday people. Nic feels that the commonality with all these stories is that each work explores diverse and complex relationships in an engaging and entertaining ways. Nic’s creative portfolio of work includes her music video directorial debut, “Something About It” for Indie band, Dizzy Dayz which was featured on triple j Unearthed (2024) and her SBS short documentary debut, Tracking Farmer Dave which was featured on SBS on Demand (2021). While working on documentaries and music videos, Nic’s portfolio also includes roles as Executive Producer and Assistant Director on the award-winning short film, KEYS (2019) which had its World Premiere in California, USA.

Nic would like to work in the Australian and international screen and theatre industry, as a writer and director for both episodic and film. Also ideally working in an advocacy role to encourage other diverse creatives underrepresented in the film industry specifically Pacific Islanders and other First Nations backgrounds to occupy and navigate key creative roles in productions for film, television, theatre and streaming platforms.

Duplexity is a play that explores the innermost thoughts and desires of women of colour and the social constructs and expectations that still hinder us today.

As the virtual world encroaches into everyday life, the expectations are reflected by the relentless streams, feeds and algorithmic cycles that influence women to dress, look, act, what to say or when to say it.

As we delve into the lives of content creators and influencers, Fidela and Dolion, supported by their screen-projected alter egos, Fidi and Dolly, forge a viral path of no return.

– Nic Puni

Duplexity revolves around the concept of one’s inner and outer self, and so the primary design objective was to create a clear dichotomy between the inner and outer selves, whilst maintaining the flow of dialogue between characters. In our production, we utilised pre-recorded footage to represent the inner selves of each character, whilst the set worked to divide the space into the “real world” and an imagined “mind space” for each set of characters to inhabit. The soundscape and lighting design further aim to emphasise this inner turmoil, capturing the tension prevalent throughout the play. To further depict the juxtaposition between the two characters’ lives, costumes of contrasting colours and styles were used, and the extravagant yet mismatched set and props paint a picture of one’s inner dialogue, dwelling on insecurities and the social media age.

– Shay Dowley, Thomas Hamilton, Julianna Stankiewicz and Finlay Hogan

Explicit language, references to eating disorders, diet culture, abortion, abuse, flashing images and strobing lights.

Content advice subject to change.