All Wedding Wishes – Kate Blackmore

— About

Kate Blackmore is an Australian artist and filmmaker whose films have been presented across cinematic, broadcast and contemporary art contexts. She has written, directed and produced over 25 short documentaries about art and culture for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, including The Art of Collecting and the Walkley Award nominated series The Movement. In 2018, Blackmore was awarded the Hive commission to create The Woman and The Car, a hybrid documentary about iconic Australian artist Margaret Dodd. The film was produced by Bridget Ikin (Felix Media) and financed by Adelaide Film Festival, Screen Australia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Blackmore’s narrative short films have screened at the Sydney Film Festival in 2021 and 2023 (Dendy Awards).

In 2024, Blackmore began production on her debut feature documentary, Make it Look Real, produced by Bethany Bruce (Staple Fiction) and Daniel Joyce (Projector Films). The film follows an intimacy coordinator on her quest to change the way sex scenes are created. Make it Look Real was supported in development by Screen Australia, Create NSW and the SAFC and was selected for the inaugural Doc Society New Perspectives Pitch Lab, and the Sunny Side of the Doc Global Pitch 2021. The film is represented by Autlook Film Sales.

Blackmore is a founding member of the acclaimed artist collective Barbara Cleveland whose works have been included in notable exhibitions including, Know My Name, NGA, Canberra (2021); Divided Worlds, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Adelaide (2018); Unboxed: Artists and the Archive, Hayward Gallery, London (2017); Today Tomorrow Yesterday, MCA, Sydney (2017); Bodies in Time, Australian Contemporary Art Commission, AGNSW, Sydney (2016); The future is already here, 20th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney (2016); and Contemporary Australia: Women, QAGOMA, Brisbane (2012). Barbara Cleveland’s work is included in Australian public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; and Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne. The collective is represented by Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.

Blackmore holds a BFA/BA (Hons) Moving Image & Performance from UNSW Art & Design, Sydney and a MA Visual and Media Anthropology from Freie Universität, Berlin. She works as a Sessional Academic in Moving Image at UNSW Art & Design and a Lecturer in Documentary at AFTRS, Sydney.

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All Wedding Wishes

ALL WEDDING WISHES (2016)

Featuring Nahren Georges, the Georges family & Sonia Odisho

Artist/Director Kate Blackmore
Cinematographer Bonnie Elliott
Editor Kate Blackmore
Camera Assistants Jamie Gray & Michael Filocamo
Sound Design & Mix Fred Rodrigues
Community/Cultural Consultants Layla Naji & Delilah Shinko
Translators Delilah Shinko & Nohara Odicho

2-Channel Video Installation, 18mins

This project was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in partnership with PYT Fairfield and the Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture & Trauma Survivors (STARTTS).

Fairfield, in Sydney’s South Western suburbs, is home to Australia’s largest Assyrian community. Assyrian weddings are the biggest in the region – they are major cultural events where ancient and modern rituals collide. Kate Blackmore’s 2-channel video installation ‘All Wedding Wishes’ explores the significance of Fairfield’s Assyrian-Australian weddings through the experience of first generation Australian bride, Nahren Georges. Weaving together interviews, observational sequences and surreal musical interludes by popular local Assyrian wedding singer Sonia Odisho, the work also illuminates the important function of the wedding videographer in mediating the event to family members remaining in Iraq. ‘All Wedding Wishes’ goes behind the spectacle to reveal how Assyrian-Australian weddings offer a form of escapism, cultural connection and community cohesion for those living in diaspora.