Shalom Almond - Filmmaker

Shalom Almond is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in Adelaide, South Australia. Shalom’s award-winning films are defined by her ability to capture people at their most intimate, up-close and personal. Her films have tackled diverse issues from cultural exploitation of minority people to embryo genetic-testing to prisoner rehabilitation. Shalom’s films have been broadcast on television and screened at film festivals in Australia and around the world.

Shalom is currently in production on a documentary series titled Prisoners and Pups set in the Adelaide Women’s Prison for ABC iView. The film follows four young female prisoners who take on the challenge of rehabilitating retired racing greyhound dogs – and in turn find their own life being transformed.

Shalom’s recent film ‘My Long Neck’ (2014) followed the rebellion of a young “long-neck” woman being exploited in a Thai tourist village. The film premiered at DocWeek 2014 to a sell-out audience and has so far been broadcast in Croatia, South Africa, South Korea, the Middle East, Spain and Portugal.

Shalom spent four years making her first feature-length documentary film ‘The Love Market’ (2009) following the journey of four hill tribe girls growing up in the face of Vietnam’s growing tourism industry. The film won Best Feature Film at the 2009 SA Screen Awards, was nominated for Best Documentary and Best Director at the 2009 AFI Awards and won the Best Documentary and IF Audience Awards at the 2009 St Kilda Film Festival, to name a few. Other recent directing highlights include ‘Love-Heart Baby’ (2012) for ABC2, ‘Chasing Shadows’ (2010) for ABC ArtScape and ‘Strong in the City’ (2011) for NITV.

Shalom is currently in development on ‘Kalahati Kid’ about Adelaide-based contemporary artist Aida Azin in her search for identity and belonging.