Sarina is a producer and an academic. She became interested in film as an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, went on to study at the University of Southern California, and completed her PhD in Film, Television and Media Studies at the University of Auckland where she is currently a lecturer. Sarinaís research interests include diasporic Pacific media, the cultures of everyday life, and globalization in the screen production industry. She has published chapters in Pacific Art Niu Sila: Pacific Dimensions of Contemporary New Zealand Art, The New Zealand Television Reader, and Screening the Nation: New Zealand Television, as well as articles in a number of journals including The Contemporary Pacific, Perfect Beat, Camera Obscura, Media Culture & Society and Continuum.

Sarina has produced both documentary and narrative projects. Her documentary projects include A Taste of Place: Stories of Food and Longing for TVNZ (2001) and her narrative projects include several dramatic short films: Fleeting Beauty (2004), Clean Linen (2006), and Coffee & Allah (2007) as well as the ethnic television sketch comedy series A Thousand Apologies (forthcoming).