Environmental Film Festival 2025

Environmental Film Festival is back, running 16-23 October and celebrating our 15th year by returning to the cinema where we first started, Palace Kino!

Enjoy Australia's premiere environmental cinema showcase, with features, shorts, documentaries, cine-art, talks, community activities and more. This year's theme is 'Environment Is Everywhere', exploring ideas of urban living, nature and beyond, with the best eco-cinema from around the world.

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 and colonisation, breathtaking tales of the city and living environments, and an inspiring portrait of a musician and her father, with an idea that might just save the planet.

Our program always goes beyond the screen, with impactful talks and opportunities to connect, and this year is no different. 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, we’ll be commemorating our 15th Birthday, with a special Anniversary Party.

In this time of climate crises, reconsider the world around you through a series of incredible films and events, because Environment Is Everywhere. 

Environmental Film Festival 2025 is presented by Environmental Films Australia, in association with Monash University and supported by Dr Bronner's.

PROGRAM

TICKETS

Note: 5% of ticket income goes to Pay The Rent, excluding the Gaza Appeal fundraiser.

Single Sessions

• Opening Night: $36

• Palace Kino Saturday sessions: $26

• Wildflower Video Bar Sessions: $10

• 15th Anniversary Party: $30 / $20**

• Elwood Beach Clean Up: Free entry

• Gaza Appeal Fundraiser: Pay As You Can

*Party tickets just $20 with any other paid ticket purchase. Discount applied at checkout.

Passes (Best Value)

• Palace Kino Festival Pass + Party: $114 (Save $20!)

• Palace Kino Festival Pass: $99 (Save $15!)

• Palace Kino Saturday Pass + Party: $85 (Save $13!)

• Palace Kino Saturday Pass: $68 (Save $10!)

• Wildflower Double Feature Pass: $16 (Save $4!)

THE FULL FEST BREAKDOWN

Experience 23 films over 8 days, including 13 premiere screenings, across 3 venues.

The festival launches on Thu 16 Oct at Palace Kino with our 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. Join us afterwards in the Kino Foyer for a champagne reception, meet the filmmakers and festival team and help us toast the fest!

On Fri 17 Oct, join us at Trocadero Projects in Footscray for 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. This screening is a ‘Pay As You Can’ fundraiser, supporting the APHEDA Gaza Appeal.

Sat 18 Oct offers a day of screenings, starting with a morning shorts session (People, Place, Planet shorts) where you’re encouraged to meet us for a free hot drink and a chat before the screening. In the afternoon, we’re joined by Monash University for a special 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). 

That evening, we’re pulling out all the stops for our 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 Sun 19 Oct, we’re stepping out of the cinema to connect with Country, through a beach clean at Elwood Beach, in partnership with 3184 Beach Patrol. Join us in turning climate anxiety into climate action, through a relaxed and social litter pick.

We’ll finish the fest on Thu 23 Oct at our regular haunt, Wildflower Video Bar in Fitzroy North, with a double feature session . Starting with the Amazonian manifesto No More History Without Us (2024), a clear-eyed and essential essay denouncing the insidiousness of precious resource extraction and how it influences culture and the environment in Brazil. We'll finish out with a festival special edition of our fan-favourite ‘After Dark’ series, 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. 

Full program and event information available at environmentalfilms.org.au.