Gemma Blackwood

Biography

Gemma moved to Darwin from Melbourne in 2014. In the areas of Film Studies and Cultural Studies, she completed a PhD on the subject of film tourism in 2012 at The University of Melbourne. Her thesis examined the ideals of film-inspired travel, and she examined specific case studies on the contemporary phenomenon: including an examination of the Universal Studios film tour in Los Angeles; the Thailand locations of The Beach; the San Francisco locations as featured in Hitchcock’s Vertigo; and a study of the tourism-promoting government initiatives that connected with Baz Luhrmann’s epic film Australia. Recently, Gemma co-edited a collection called Motion Pictures: Travel Ideals in Film that was published by Peter Lang. She is currently working on a monograph on film tourism, and researching representations of the outback in Australian cinema. She also writes and communicates in a range of different mediums. She is a freelance travel writer, and also regularly writes for the online site The Conversation with pieces about Australian popular culture. In Darwin, she was one of the founders of a popular live storytelling event called SPUN: True Stories Told in the Territory.

Research Interest

Film Studies, Digital Cultures, and Communication Studies.