And the passing last year of the Income Tax Act (Film-Making and Audio-Visual Incentives Amendment) Decree, together with a currently ongoing amendment to the Cinematographic Films Act, ought to cause producers and film financiers to carry out a serious reassessment of their options.

Too complex to summarise here, the fiscal amendments give a variety of tiered tax-breaks to production companies who shoot part or all of their movie on either of Fiji’s two main islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, or on any of the dozens of smaller islands, many of them uninhabited, that make up the archipelago.

But the real benefits will come to those who commit to moving into the Studio City Zone, an ambitious new scheme located at the foot of the mountains from which, according to local legend, the early Fijians set out to populate the islands. The FAVC is hoping that the new Zone, being developed by the locally registered Paradise Entertainment, will do much the same for the islands’ audiovisual industry.

Situated on the north shore of the main island about an hour-and-a-half’s drive from the international airport at Nadi (Sydney: 3 hours 50 minutes; Los Angeles: 10 hours; London: 21 hours 30 minutes), the Studio City Zone will be a 2,200-hectare site (slightly bigger than the Principality of Monaco, if that helps Cannes readers get an idea of the scale), on which it is planned to build studios, production offices and a backlot; hotel and tourist facilities, including a theme park and a golf course; residential accommodation for tax-free residents; and a range of retail and educational facilities.

Not surprisingly, the whole scheme, from the setting up of the FAVC to the plans for the Studio City Zone, is backed up by plans to establish an audiovisual school and other educational facilities to help Fijians break into the international industry, and to promote and archive local production and the islands’ ‘intellectual property’.

But the desire to establish Fiji as a centre for international audiovisual production, with clients from Australasia, the Far East, the US and even Europe - the business imperative, in other words - remains paramount, as does the determination to build up a base of skills and facilities which will ensure a continued flow of visitors to the islands.

Oh, and did we mention the beaches, the climate, the cuisine…? Not that we need to: with Fiji, as in the movies, a picture is worth a thousand words.

“Ni sa moce mada,”* as they say in Fiji.