The Environmental Film Festival is back and ready to make you rethink everything around you.
Running from 16-23 October across three Melbourne venues, Environmental Film Festival 2025 is serving up a week of eco-cinema that’ll have you seeing your city streets and local parks in a whole new light. This year’s theme, Environment Is Everywhere, ditches the idea that nature is something separate from our daily lives and instead explores how urban spaces, built environments and natural ecosystems all interconnect.
After taking a five-year break from week-long in-person festivals, Environmental Film Festival is celebrating its 15th anniversary with 24 films including 16 premieres, filmmaker panels, community activities and even a beach clean-up. The volunteer-run arts charity sifted through more than 600 films to curate this year’s program, which spans Indigenous activism stories, urban landscape reflections and intergenerational climate solutions.
Environmental Film Festival
- 16-23 October
- Palace Kino, Trocadero Projects and Wildflower Video Bar
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
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The festival goes beyond just screenings, with filmmaker panels exploring environmental storytelling and a collaboration with 3184 Beach Patrol for a beach litter pick on 19 October. There’s also a fundraiser screening at Trocadero Projects in Footscray supporting the APHEDA Gaza Emergency Appeal.
Highlights include opening night feature Documerica, Self-Portrait of a Nation on the Brink, which examines a 1970s American photography project documenting environmental destruction. Melbourne artist Eugenia Lim’s METABOLISM explores the waterways and ecology of Melbourne’s west, while These Sacred Hills follows the Rock Creek Band of the Yakama Nation fighting to protect sacred sites from a green energy project.
The After Dark shorts package at Wildflower Video Bar wraps up the festival with a collection of experimental films, animations and film poems, including the world premiere of Australian short Blissonance and the Melbourne premiere of Swiss animated mockumentary Martha.
Presented by Environmental Films Australia, Monash University and Dr Bronner’s, the festival aims to spark conversations about climate action and our connection to the environments we inhabit every day.
For more information, head here.
