Shalom Almond

Shalom Almond is an Australian documentary filmmaker who is passionate about making character driven social issue films here in Australia and overseas.

Over the past few years Shalom has won several awards for her work, and her films have screened on television and at acclaimed festivals around the world.

Shalom's recent directing highlights include The Love Market (2009) which follows the journey of four hill tribe girls struggling to grow up in the face of Vietnam's growing tourism industry. The film was nominated for Best Documentary (under one hour) and Best Director at the 2009 AFI Awards, world premiered to a SOLD OUT audience at the 2009 Adelaide Film Festival, was awarded the Best Feature Film Award at the 2009 South Australian Screen Awards and won the Best Documentary Award and IF Audience Award at the 2009 St Kilda Film Festival to name a few. Other recent highlights include Chasing Shadows (2010) for ABC about a young Aboriginal man trying to carve out a career in the Hip Hop music industry. The film recently won the 2011 Best Documentary Award at the South Australian Screen Awards.

Currently, Shalom is working on several projects including My Long Neck which follows the story of Maja, a "Long Neck" Kayan refugee woman who faces exploitation in a Thai tourist village and dreams of freedom.

Filmography

	CHASING SHADOWS » "Newspapers say the only way for young Aboriginal fellas to make it big is to play footy. That’s what I did, until I injured my knee and my footy career was cut short...
	MY LONG NECK » Maja lives in a human zoo in Thailand, constantly being photographed by tourists for her “long neck”. This is the story of her fight to reclaim her identity and culture...
	LOVE MARKET, THE » In the highlands of North Vietnam lies the remote town of Sapa, home to a mosaic of colourful hill tribes. Sapa opened to tourism in the late 1990s, and now roughly 200 hill tribe girls aged 7 – 18 years live independently on the streets of Sapa selling embroidery...