2023 | Australia | Experimental

In urban Kaurna country, a young man spending time in nature is slowly swallowed by the industrial world.

A contemplation on the paradox of finding joy in an environment while being complicit in its disruption. Shot on 16mm film.

Screening as part of ‘EFF25 After Dark’.

Thu 23 Oct, 21:00 - 22:00
Wildflower Video Bar

World Premiere

2021 | Norway | Experimental

The intricacies of human life are set in contrast with the slow, sticky reality of beach snails, through intense close-ups and enveloping human-made soundscapes.

A visceral yet beautiful insight; a balancing act of connection and solitude, curiosity and constraint, and transience and endurance. A true conversation starter.

Screening as part of ‘People, Place, Planet’ shorts.

Sat 18 Oct, 11:00 - 12:40
Palace Kino

Victorian Premiere

2023 | Ireland | Dance

Follow the path of Ireland’s stunning Western Way, as a local woman collects wood and connects with the land around her.

A mesmerising experimental dance film by choreographer and performer Linda Schirmer, reflecting our connection with and dependence upon resources drawn from rural geographies.

Screening as part of ‘People, Place, Planet’ shorts.

Sat 18 Oct, 11:00 - 12:40
Palace Kino

Australian Premiere

2023 | United States, France | Documentary

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. 

Thu 16 Oct, 18:30 - 21:30
Palace Kino

Australian Premiere

2024 | United Kingdom | Documentary

A fast-paced snapshot of the planet, with every second revealing how land is used across the Earth. A blink-and-you’ll-miss it eye opener.

Screening as part of ‘People, Place, Planet’ shorts.

Sat 18 Oct, 11:00 - 12:40
Palace Kino

2023, United States, Experimental

Ten years after Hurricane Sandy submerged New York’s Brooklyn waterfront, luxury developments reemerge in the same high-risk flood zones, seemingly blind to past devastation and future threats.

Shot on 16mm and using in-camera layered exposure, the film delivers a visceral warning and speculative vision, exposing the real estate industry’s ruthless ignorance for the sake of profit.

Screening as part of ‘EFF25 After Dark’.

Thu 23 Oct, 21:00 - 22:00
Wildflower Video Bar

Australian Premiere

2023 | Torres Strait | Experimental

Sweeping oceanic imagery, consuming soundscapes and a symbolic performance merge with Torres Strait Islander knowledge and lived experience to consider identity, culture, and Earth’s natural cycles.

Created by Erub Island artist Jimmy John Thaiday of the Kuz and Peiudu clans, this powerful, moving vision conveys our inextricable bond with the ocean.

Screening as part of the METABOLISM & Water Ecologies Gaza Appeal Fundraiser.

Fri 17 Oct, 18:45 - 20:15
Trocadero Projects, Footscray

2024 | Switzerland | Animated Documentary

A 1900s-style animated gem recounting the rapid extermination of one of the world’s most abundant bird species.

With audio testimony by ‘Martha’, the world’s last passenger pigeon, this mockumentary blends charm, humour, horror, and heartbreak. Clever, funny, yet masterfully devastating.

Screening as part of ‘EFF25 After Dark’.

Thu 23 Oct, 21:00 - 22:00
Wildflower Video Bar

Melbourne Premiere

2024 | Aotearoa / New Zealand | Documentary

Documenting the crisis silently unfolding on Aotea’s serene shores, Māori filmmaker Nathaniel Howe immerses viewers, via underwater cinematography, in the realities of an invasive algae species that disrupting the delicate marine ecosystem and endangering the island’s ancestral fishing practices.

Engaging, disturbing and powerful.

Screening as part of ‘People, Place, Planet’ shorts.

Sat 18 Oct, 11:00 - 12:40
Palace Kino

Australian Premiere

2023 | Australia | Experimental

An experiential gallery screening of ‘METABOLISM’, a cinematic poem by local award-winning artist Eugenia Lim.

A portrait of a living, working ecology and the multispecies it sustains, this meditative experimental documentary studies how the body is land and land is body, and invites you to see Melbourne’s West through new eyes.

Screening as part of the METABOLISM & Water Ecologies Gaza Appeal Fundraiser.

Fri 17 Oct, 18:45 - 20:15
Trocadero Projects, Footscray

Gaza Appeal Fundraiser Screening

2024 | United States | Horror, Experimental

Inspired by a childhood memory, filmmaker Nathan Sellers envisions a tree’s perspective on humanity’s abrasive and cruel nature. A haunting animation that unfolds like a slide-show fever dream, vividly illustrating the exploitation of trees and their haunting dual role as silent witnesses and involuntary participants in humanity's long history of violence.

Screening as part of ‘EFF25 After Dark’.

Thu 23 Oct, 21:00 - 22:00
Wildflower Video Bar

Australian Premiere

2024 | Brazil | Documentary

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.

Thu 23 Oct, 18:45 - 20:15
Wildflower Video Bar

Australian Premiere

Go behind the scenes for the installation of the Marlinja community microgrid, a project four years in the making that creates energy security for the Marlinja community.

A campaign short by Aboriginal community-focussed organisation Original Power.

Screening with ‘These Sacred Hills’.

Sat 18 Oct, 13:10 - 15:25
Palace Kino

Big Screen Premiere

Australia | Campaign Short

Learn about the incredible work of Australia’s first Indigenous clean energy co-op Ngardara Co-operative, and Original Power to develop the Ngardara ‘Sun’ Project solar-grid in Borroloola.

A campaign short showcasing the transformative power of energy sovereignty for communities in the Northern Territory.

Screening with ‘These Sacred Hills’.

Sat 18 Oct, 13:10 - 15:25
Palace Kino

Big Screen Premiere

2024 | Canada | Animation

Along the banks of a sacred river in Northern Canada, a dreamlike world unfolds where animals carry the wisdom of the Earth. 

Artists and filmmakers Chantal Rousseau and Darcy Tara McDiarmid deliver a captivating celebration and important reminder: the land still speaks and asks us to listen.

Screening prior to ‘Documerica, Self-Portrait of a Nation on the Brink’ as part of the festival’s Opening Night.

Thu 16 Oct, 18:30 - 21:30
Palace Kino

2021 | United Kingdom | Documentary. Film Poem

An experiential walking-point-of-view through the design and decline of East London’s iconic Robin Hood Gardens housing estate.

Award winning photographer and filmmaker Joe Gilbert shares a multi-layered, intimate journey, meditating on how people build and inhabit urban environments. A potent reminder that architecture, like nature, shapes how we move through the world.

Screening as part of ‘People, Place, Planet’ shorts.

Sat 18 Oct, 11:00 - 12:40
Palace Kino

Australian Premiere

2024 | Italy | Documentary

To make way for the new European Library of Information and Culture, a 100 year old plane tree must be moved a mere 72 meters. This documentary captures its intricate journey. 

A demonstration of the delicate balance between human ambition, the persistence of nature, urban ecology, and the ethical responsibilities of city living.

Screening as part of ‘People, Place, Planet’ shorts.

Sat 18 Oct, 11:00 - 12:40
Palace Kino

Australian Premiere

2023 | United States | Fiction

Earth is experiencing its final winter and a streaming media company is seeking to capture the soon-to-be-lost season. Realising the assignment is capitalising on the end of the world, one crew member takes a stand.

A magnetic and visually-inspired speculative tale on the commodification of ecological tipping points.

Screening as part of ‘EFF25 After Dark’.

Thu 23 Oct, 21:00 - 22:00
Wildflower Video Bar

Australian Premiere

2023 | Australia, India | Documentary

Follow Teja and Rohit, two brothers who work as traditional tree trimmers in Nagpur, India, as their livelihood is impacted by tightening environmental legislation.

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.

Screening as part of ‘People, Place, Planet’ shorts.

Sat 18 Oct, 11:00 - 12:40
Palace Kino

2024 | Ireland | Film Poem

On a poetic journey through an overgrown Irish backyard, actor and director Ceara Carney reveals a hidden sanctuary for thriving flora and fauna.

A charming and poignant reminder of cohabitation and interdependence in our local ecosystems, celebrating the garden as a subtle archive of colonial history.

Screening as part of ‘EFF25 After Dark’.

Thu 23 Oct, 21:00 - 22:00
Wildflower Video Bar

Australian Premiere

2017 | Japan | Experimental

A contemplative and visually striking sonic experience, connecting cinema, sound art, and waterways through elegant compositions, underwater views, and the delicate dance of algae swaying in the stream.

Filmmaker Hiroya Sukarai traces the origins of a stream in the waterway of a rice field, offering a reflection on the tension between natural forces and agricultural order, capturing both beauty and resistance in motion.

Screening as part of the METABOLISM & Water Ecologies Gaza Appeal Fundraiser.

Fri 17 Oct, 18:45 - 20:15
Trocadero Projects, Footscray

Australian Premiere

2023 | Czech Republic, Slovakia | Documentary

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.

Sat 18 Oct, 16:00 - 17:35
Palace Kino

Australian Premiere

2024 | United States | Documentary

Facing an existential threat from a proposed green energy project, the Rock Creek Band of the Yakama Nation fights 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.

A tender portrait of a community’s fight to protect their sacred lands from continued colonial extraction.

Sat 18 Oct, 13:10 - 15:25
Palace Kino

Australian Premiere

More films to be announced!

Chaired by ABC star Maree Jay Lowes, we'll be joined by Han and Northern Tutchone artist and filmmaker Darcy Tara McDiarmid (River Revelations), visual artist Katrin Koenning, and Burrinja Cultural Centre's CEO Melanie Burge.

The discussion will cover the place of art and media in conservation and climate action, the convergency of traditional cultural practices and environmental storytelling, and what would ‘Docu-stralia’ look like today.

Part of the EFF25 Opening Night Showcase

Thu 16 Oct, 18:30 - 21:30
Palace Kino

A brief insight into energy and justice through power, exploring the essential role that filmmaking and visual media play in communicating and campaigning on energy issues, with campaign updates from These Sacred Hills and Original Power.

In partnership with Monash University, as part of the 'Aesthetics of Energy Transitions’ research project.

Part of the ‘These Sacred Hills’ session

Sat 18 Oct, 13:10 - 15:15
Palace Kino

Coming to our Wildflower sessions?

Between the films we’ll be grabbing dinner and drinks in the backroom of Wildflower and are inviting you to join us!

Discuss the films, debrief on the fest and find out about our future events, with a delicious menu, showcasing native ingredients, and an incredible cocktail list.

Pre-order your food prior to ‘No More History Without Us’ and it’ll be prepared for you in time for the break between films.

Part of ‘No More History Without Us’ and ‘EFF25 After Dark’

Thu 23 Oct, 18:30 onwards
Wildflower Video Bar

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.

3184 Beach Patrol will guide us through the best way to litter-pick and help us collect and count our spoils.

Following the clean up, there'll be the option to join the team for a casual lunch in a local cafe.

Meet at Elwood Pier. RSVP for info & updates.

Sun 19 Oct, 11:00 - 13:00
Elwood Beach

With our first film session at 11:00, what better way to start the day than with a coffee and a catch up at our casual community gathering in the Palace Kino Foyer.

A chance to meet the team and each other and get ready for a day of breathtaking cinema.

Free plant-based hot drink for those with tickets to People, Place, Planet shorts.

Part of People, Place, Planet Shorts, but open to all.

Sat 18 Oct, 10:30-11:00
Palace Kino

Chaired by producer Cathy Rodda, we'll be joined by Clancy Walker (Yana Dmajaga Ganji), Le Luo (Outpicker) and Febe De Geest (The People's Tree)

Discussing what it's like behind-the-scenes making environmental cinema in Australia today, including the place of film festivals, broadcasters and community screenings, and the different approaches to filmmaking.

Part of ‘People, Place, Planet’ shorts session

Sat 18 Oct, 11:00 - 12:40
Palace Kino

A short talk by filmmaker Eugenia Lim, following our experiential gallery screening of METABOLISM, plus two water ecologies shorts.

Discussing the making of METABOLISM in Melbourne’s West, Eugenia Lim will speak to how their work explores migration, capital, labour, materiality, ecology, the politics of space and our interconnection with water.

Part of the METABOLISM & Water Ecologies - Pay As You Can Gaza Appeal Fundraiser.

Fri 17 Oct, 18:45 - 20:15
Trocadero Projects, Footscray

An exclusive pre-recorded talk from the filmmakers behind No More History Without Us.

With behind-the-scenes insights into the making of the film, food for thought and questions for discussion, this talk encourages audiences to connect after the screening and keep the conversation going.

As part of the ‘No More History Without Us’ session

23 Oct, 18:45 - 20:15
Wildflower Video Bar

We're throwing a party to celebrate our 15th year as a fully volunteer-run environmental arts organisation… and you're invited!

Join us for a night of music, dancing and creativity at Bobbie Peels in North Melbourne. We'll have activation spaces to explore, drinks on arrival, and delicious plant-based canapés to enjoy.

Come celebrate this milestone with us and the incredible community that makes our work possible.

All welcome! Save $10 with any cinema ticket purchase.

Sat 18 Oct, 19:30 - Late
Bobbie Peels