The Butter Scene – Kate Blackmore

— About

Kate Blackmore is an Australian filmmaker whose work spans fiction, documentary and experimental forms. In 2025, Kate’s debut feature documentary, Make it Look Real, premiered at SXSW (TX), Sydney Film Festival, and was subsequently acquired by Netflix (ANZ). Exploring the evolving role of intimacy coordinators on film sets, the hybrid film was produced by Bethany Bruce (Staple Fiction) and Dan Joyce (Projector Films), with support from Screen NSW, Screen Australia, and the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund. Make it Look Real is distributed in Australia by Bonsai and represented internationally by Autlook Film Sales.

Kate has written, directed, and produced over 25 short documentaries for the ABC, including the Walkley Award-nominated series on contemporary dance, The Movement. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious 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 ABC. Kate’s narrative short films have screened at the Sydney Film Festival in 2021 and 2023 (Dendy Awards).

Kate is also a founding member of the acclaimed artist collective Barbara Cleveland whose works have been included in notable exhibitions: Know My Name, NGA, Canberra (2021); Divided Worlds, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Adelaide (2018); Unfinished Business, ACCA, Melbourne (2017); 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); and The future is already here, 20th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney (2016). Barbara Cleveland’s work is included in the permanent collections of 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.

Kate 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 Lecturer in Directing at AFTRS, Sydney.

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The Butter Scene

THE BUTTER SCENE (2021)

Performers Tara Morice & William Zappa

Writer, Director & Editor Kate Blackmore
Producer Bethany Bruce, Staple Fiction
Cinematographer Meg White
Set & Costume Designer Tess Strelein
Composer Damien Ricketson
Sound Design & Mix Bob Scott
Casting Director Stevie Ray CGA

Narrative Short, 7mins

Watch on Vimeo on Demand

Official Selection – 2021 Sydney Film Festival

The Butter Scene re-examines one of cinema’s most infamous moments: the ‘butter scene’ from Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972). Actors perform verbatim the real interviews of Maria Schneider and Bernardo Bertolucci as interwoven soliloquies, creating a dialogue across time. The film honours Schneider’s lived experience of abuse while confronting the blurred line between artistic exploration and exploitation in cinema.