EFFA ‘16.

26 Sep - 26 October 2016

ACMI, Grub Fitzroy, Federation Square, Docklands Park - Melbourne
Civic Square, Palace Electric, Rond Terraces Park - Canberra
New Farm Cinema - Brisbane
Palace Chauvel Cinema - Sydney
The Mercury - Adelaide

Download the 2016 Program

Event details.

For the last five years, every September, we've been inspiring Melbourne with the best environmental cinema from all over the world. We've changed minds with powerful films, sparked debate with thought-provoking discussion, entertained with special guests, music and art and brought incredible folk like you together to have a great time.

2015 is a huge year for us. We're thrilled to be taking the festival beyond Melbourne to communities in Canberra and Hobart. And we’re delighted to be launching our education program in Victoria, inspiring our future leaders to stand up for the natural world we love and depend on. 2015 is the year we’re turning what started as the seed of an idea into a thriving national arts and cultural event.

We couldn’t have done this without our team of talented volunteers and without the support of our dedicated film festival supporters. What an incredible bunch! We hope you all enjoy this year’s festival – it’s set to be our best yet.

Program Highlights

Opening Night | Celebrate the opening night of Australia’s first national environmental film festival! Catch the world premiere of Black Hole from Australian director Joao Dujon Pereira, a discussion with the filmmaker, Bob Brown and special guests, followed by a smashing after party complete with live music, drinks and canapés.

Good Things Await and tasting | Good Things Await invites us into the Stokholm biodynamic farm in Thorshøjgaard, Denmark. Meet Niels Stokholm in a charming introduction to biodynamic farming where humans and nature exist in harmony. Join the conversation about our food systems with expert panellists and local food appreciators, and feast on tastings of mouthwatering food.

The True Cost | The True Cost delves behind the glitz and glamour of the multi-billion-dollar fashion industry to reveal the social and environmental impacts. The documentary invites us on an eye opening journey into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes.

Closing Night | Celebrate the close of EFFA 2015 with the screening of Landfill Harmonic, address from special guest festival patron Adam Bandt, a surprise performance, festival award announcements, and a closing night party to kick up our heels and revel in another stellar year for environmental film.

Trailer.

Poster.

Note from Directors.

We are on the edge of change, at the precipice of opportunity where we can learn from and take responsibility for our past and use this wisdom to change the course of our future.

In Australia, we have seen positive change - fervent individuals, communities and businesses are taking action. Since we last met, we’ve seen globally historical moments in environmental decision making. But challenges amass and the future of planet Earth must remain in all of our focus and the subject of our enquiries, our activism and our aspirations.

At the Environmental Film Festival Australia we do just that every day. Earth’s sustainable future drives our passion as we rummage through cinema’s best and brightest to bring stories about the world around us to Australian screens and ask audiences to consider how future generations will come to know and care for this wondrous blue dot.

This year EFFA is back bigger than ever before, bringing the world’s best and most poignant environmental cinema to you. EFFA is more than a film festival - it is a catalyst for positive and sustainable change. This season, our seventh, sees us breaking new ground once more, taking to screens in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart and Launceston.

We are matching big ideas, with big conversations... we are uncovering the truth, venturing into the unknown, inspiring collective action, challenging age-old wisdom, sharing solutions, highlighting the power of our own choices, celebrating the world around us, and yes... eating bugs!

I am privileged to be introducing to you a program of films, events and conversations that has been masterfully put together by our all-volunteer Festival Team. EFFA’s program demonstrates the diversity of voices in the environmental movement and the many ways we can tell stories that inspire us to be informed and do more for the places we love.

It is with great enthusiasm that I welcome you to EFFA 2016.

Please join us this September and October and tell the world that you give a flick!

Chris Gerbing | Festival Director

The Films.

| Features

When Two Worlds Collide | Heidi Brandenburg & Mathew Orzel, Peru (2016)
Indian Point | Ivy Meeropol, USA (2015)
Sonic Sea | Michelle Dougherty & Daniel Hinerfeld, USA (2016)
Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise | Mark Cousins, UK (2015)
Company Town | Natalie Kottke & Erica Sardarian, USA (2016)
Behemoth | Liang Zhao, China (2015)
Zero | Gyula Nemes, Hungary (2015)
Sustainable | Matt Wechsler, USA (2016)
Tunnel Vision | Ivan Hexter, Australia (2016)
Time to Choose | Charles Ferguson, USA (2015)
Daughter of the Lake | Ernesto Cabellos, Peru (2015)
The Living Fire | Ostap Kostyuk, Ukraine (2015)
Bugs on the Menu | Ian Toews, Canada (2016)
The Man Who Can't Stop | Michael Rubbo, Australia (1973)
Night Parrot Stories | Robert Nugent, Australia (2016)
Death by Design | Sue Williams, USA/China (2016)
The Islands and the Whales | Mike Day, UK/Denmark (2016)
Seed: the untold story | Jon Betz & Taggart Siegel, USA (2016)

| Australian shorts

The Great Forest | Marli Lopez-Hope, Australia
Restoring Earth | Danielle Ryan and James Sherwood, Australia
Under Skin, In Blood | Larissa Behrendt, Australia
Walking for Country | Reza Nezamdoust, Australia
Maratus | Simon Cunich, Australia
Their Land | Simon Bischoff, Australia
Bobby Brown Homelands | Kim Mavromatis and Quenten Agius, Australia
Sweat | Rod Rathjen, Australia

| Experimental shorts

EFFA Team.

Director: Chris Gerbing

ACT State Festival Manager: Andrea Garcia

NSW State Festival Manager: Mani Selverajoo

Programming Manager: Shaun Larkin

Programming Team: Hieu Chau, Bek Spies, Cassandra Meehan, Natalie May, Jamieson Pearce, Nathan Senn, Brendan McDonagh and Bessie Byrne

Engagement Manager: Nick Melin

Engagement Team: Liz Bacchetti, Claudia de Pieri, Elena Osalde, Ashika Chaudhari, Janina Stansson, Holly Bodeker-Smith and Sophie Lloyd.

Operations Manager: Reta Le Quesne

Operations Team: Tessa Richardson, Iliana Keskeredis,

Bree Williams, Tiana Stefanic

Business Development Manager: Gene Blackley

Business Development Team: Romy Tirosh, Ben Bradford, Lucy Stegley, Monica Diaz, Evan Page, Bhavana Gannapuram, Naren Bangunde, Sabrina Titze and Sinead Boylan

Education Program Officer: Tess Macrae

We also thank Cameron Scott, Allison Mouret, Shelly Yao, Andy Nielsen, Tash Brown, Kathryn Hodgkinson, Nelle Pierce, Paige Sopik

Program and 2016 Branding Confetti Studio