Environment is Everywhere – Environmental Film Festival 2025

19 September 2025

Australia’s premier environmental cinema showcase Environmental Film Festival is celebrating 15 years from Thursday 16 to Thursday 23 October with features, shorts, documentaries, cine-art, talks, community activities and more!

Presented by Environmental Films Australia, this year’s theme is ‘Environment Is Everywhere’, exploring ideas of urban living, nature and beyond.

“We’re really delighted to be celebrating our 15th year with our first week-long in person festival since 2019. We’re screening 23 films, including 14 premieres, four talks and multiple community get-togethers, even a beach litterpick and one very special festival party!” said Freyja Gillard, Co-Director of Environmental Films Australia.

“This year’s program is really unique for us, focussing on the idea that the environment is indeed everywhere; it’s not an ‘other’, separate from us, only available in the ‘wild’. The vast majority of humans live in urban spaces and cities and this year’s selection really showcases what that looks like in an environmental-sense, exploring the interconnection between people and place, what our environments mean to us, and what we mean to our environments.”

“As a fully volunteer-run arts charity, we’re so privileged to be hitting our 15th year, with fresh films and ideas. This year the team watched over 600 films to select the best eco-cinema from around the world and we can’t wait to share this impactful program with audiences, old and new,” said Freyja. “We believe that film has the power to inspire change and raise awareness about important environmental issues. Among our curated selection, we’re excited to present a unique segment dedicated to ‘smashing machine movie analysis,’ where we explore the intersection of technology and eco-conscious storytelling. These thought-provoking discussions will enrich viewers’ understanding and appreciation of the films while fostering a deeper connection to the pressing issues we face today.

Traversing the city, with screenings at Palace Kino, Trocadero Projects and Wildflower Video Bar, the program spans Indigenous stories of power and activism, local reflections on landscape, breathtaking tales of the city and living environments, and inspiring intergenerational ideas that might just save the planet.

With filmmaker panels, receptions and a special community action event, audiences have the opportunity to go further, meet changemakers and keep the conversation going.

Plus, at the centre of the fest, Environmental Film Festival will be commemorating their 15th birthday, with a special Anniversary Party.

In this time of climate crises, the festival asks everyone to reconsider the world around them through a series of incredible films and events and marvel at how Environment Is Everywhere.

Films include:

Documerica, Self-Portrait of a Nation on the Brink (2023) USA

Opening night, Thursday 16 October at 6.30pm

The art of photography reflects the onrush of pollution and destruction in this evocative recollection of the ‘Documerica Project’, a long-forgotten epic photo survey of the American environment launched in the early 1970s at the height of environmental awareness. Bearing witness to the limits of the American Dream, when desecration and decay of the nation’s natural environments are taking hold, director Pierre-Francois Didek’s reflective documentary conjures another time in environmental history, reminding us of what is still at stake and of the power of images to shape the past and future.

The People’s Tree (2023), Australia
Playing as part of the People, Planet, Place Shorts Package, Saturday 18 October at 11.00am

Follow Teja and Rohit, two brothers who work as traditional tree trimmers in Nagpur, India, as their livelihood is impacted by tightening environmental legislation. Reflecting on caste, community, and the tension between ecological protection and human sustenance, Melbourne-based director Febe De Geest shines a light on who bears the cost of environmental change and how labour, culture, and resilience intersect with a fragile natural world.

These Sacred Hills (2024) USA

Saturday 18 October at 1.10pm

Facing an existential threat from a proposed green energy project, the Rock Creek Band of the Yakama Nation fight to protect their sacred sites and cultural resources. In a last-ditch effort to be heard, they open their community and reveal parts of their sacred culture for the first time. Weaving together tradition, activism, community and beautiful moments, filmmakers Jacob Bailey and Christopher Ward present a powerful, tender portrait of a community’s fight to protect their sacred lands from continued colonial extraction.

Australian premiere

The World According to my Dad (2023) Czech Republic, Slovakia

Saturday 18 October at 4pm

What happens when a scientist and an artist team up to save the planet? Artist and filmmaker Marta Kovářová presents a funny, intimate documentary about her father, a physicist who dreams of fixing climate change with one big bold idea. Follow their journey as they try to make their voices heard in a world that doesn’t always want to listen, crashing conferences, playing protest songs, and sharing late-night chats. The World According to My Dad shows that saving the planet isn’t just about science, it’s about family, imagination, and working together.

Australian premiere

No More History Without Us (2024) Brazil

Thursday 23 October at 6.45pm

The Amazon has long been treated as a paradise for outsiders to exploit. But what happens when the people of the Amazon reclaim the telling of their own history? An eye-opening manifesto documentary by two Amazonian filmmakers who flip the script, revealing how European colonisers invented false ideas about the Amazon and its people. From stolen artifacts hidden away in museums to the logging trucks stripping the forest, colonial legacies continue to shape the present. More than a history lesson or critique, this is an act of resistance and reclamation. A fierce and uncompromising reminder that without decolonisation there can be no healing.

Australian premiere

The full program and more information is at https://environmentalfilms.org.au/events/eff-2025

The festival launches on Thursday 16 October at Palace Kino with the Opening Night feature ‘Documerica, Self-Portrait of a Nation on the Brink’ (2023), a unique insight into a long-forgotten 1970s epic photo survey of the American environment, followed by a panel on the confluence of climate, art, photography and media, chaired by ABC star Maree Lowes. Afterwards in the Kino Foyer is a champagne reception to meet the filmmakers and festival team and toast the fest!

On Friday 17 October Trocadero Projects in Footscray hosts an experiential gallery screening of ‘METABOLISM’ (2023), an enigmatic film-essay that uses the Werribee Western Treatment Plan to frame ideas of the body-as-land and land-as-body, with an artist talk from filmmaker Eugenia Lim. This screening is a ‘Pay As You Can’ fundraiser, supporting the APHEDA Gaza Appeal.

Saturday 18 October offers a day of screenings, starting with a morning shorts session (People, Place, Planet shorts) with a free hot drink and a chat before the screening. In the afternoon, is a special Monash University First Nations event screening of ‘These Sacred Hills‘ (2024), accompanied by shorts from the Aboriginal action group, Original Power. Finishing the trio of films is the deeply personal and heartwarming ‘The World According To My Dad’ (2023).

In the evening of Saturday 18 October is the Anniversary Party at Bobbie Peels in North Melbourne. This soirée will celebrate 15 years of being a fully volunteer-run environmental arts organisation, with music, dancing, activation spaces and plant-based canapés.

On Sunday 19 October, step out of the cinema to connect with Country, through a beach clean at Elwood Beach, in partnership with 3184 Beach Patrol. Join others in turning climate anxiety into climate action, through a relaxed and social litter pick.

The festival closes on Thursday 23 October at Wildflower Video Bar in Fitzroy North, with a double feature session. The Amazonian manifesto ‘No More History Without Us’ (2024), is a clear-eyed and essential essay film denouncing the insidiousness of precious resource extraction and how it influences culture and the environment in Brazil.

Then a festival special edition of the fan-favourite ‘After Dark’ series sees an eclectic mix of weird, wonderful and boundary-pushing shorts, exploring ideas of environment and what it means to live in a more-than-human world.

Tickets available from https://events.humanitix.com/environmental-film-festival-2025