EFFA presents: Mad Max 2 and an Evening of Speculative Futures

18:15, Thursday 7 November
Lido Cinemas

How tomorrow’s stories respond to today’s emergencies.

As tomorrow rushes on at an unstoppable speed, Environmental Film Festival Australia and Monash University present an evening of speculative future exploration at Lido Cinemas on Thursday 7 November.

Featuring four distinct visions of the future, with a retrospective screening of Australian classic Mad Max 2 (1981) and a selection of curated shorts, this special cinema event delves into how tomorrow’s stories respond to today’s emergencies.

The program begins with three shorts - 48 Gradi (2022), Mauvaise Graine (Bad Seed) (2022), and ABBA (2023) - traversing the very near to the very far future, with imagined possibilities that feel almost too real.

Then George Miller’s frenetic Mad Max II lands us in a post-ecocide wasteland, with civilisation collapsed. Culturally important and multi-award winning, this apocalyptic action movie shares a gritty yet breakneck view of the future, where the world is a junkyard and fuel is king.

Following the screening, we’ll be joined by Science Gallery’s Tilly Boleyn, author JR Burgmann and Australian Environments on Screen’s Melanie Ashe to discuss the collision of environmental stories and speculative fiction, what dystopian perspectives tell us about the present, and the legacy of Mad Max within Australian environmental filmmaking.

Join us afterwards for drinks and discussion in the Lido bar.

Tickets available via Lido Cinema

Presented by | Environmental Film Festival Australia, Australian Environments on Screen, Monash University and Lido Cinemas

Supported by | Carbon Positive Australia, Rock Posters and Art Disrupt

The program.

The event will include:

Brief introduction
Shorts package: 48 Gradi, Mauvaise Graine (Bad Seed), ABBA
Feature film: Mad Max 2
Speculative Futures panel discussion, with Tilly Boleyn, JR Burgmann and Melanie Ashe
Drinks and discussion (in the Lido Bar)

This is a single session screening, running from 18:15 - 21:00 with no break, followed by drinks until 22:00.

All the films.

Mad Max 2

Max Rockatansky returns as the heroic loner who drives the dusty roads of a postapocalyptic Australian Outback in an unending search for gasoline. Arrayed against him and the other scraggly defendants of a fuel-depot encampment are the bizarre warriors commanded by the charismatic Lord Humungus, a violent leader whose scruples are as barren as the surrounding landscape.
ABBA

A journey across the universe in search of water to survive. A journey in search of oneself. This Italian science fiction takes us far into the future as astronauts search for humanity’s most precious resource.
Mauvaise Graine (Bad Seed)

In not-to-distant future France, seeds are only available through illicit sources and plants are hidden in secure places. How will Arthur react when he realises his girlfriend Sadia is breaking the law?
48 Gradi

On a day when temperatures rise relentlessly, a woman finds herself stuck in her car. Her only salvation is the air conditioning, until the battery dies...

The Panel.

Tilly Boleyn

Tilly Boleyn is the Head of Curatorial at Science Gallery Melbourne. Her background is in museums, galleries, education, festivals, broadcasting and research. Her interests focus mainly on blurring the boundaries between science, art, design, technology, maths, engineering, large-scale-batteries-powered-by-human-urine and doing things she's told aren't allowed. She is a massive nerd who is curious about the world and everything in it.
J.R. Burgmann

J.R. Burgmann is an Australian writer. He graduated from the University of Melbourne and received his PhD in Literary and Cultural Studies from Monash University. He is a researcher for both the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub and RMIT's Extinction Imaginaries project. Children of Tomorrow, his debut novel, was highly commended in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2021 in the category of unpublished manuscripts. In 2023, it was published in Australia by Upswell and in North America by Great Plains Press. He is currently working on his second novel, Abominable, for which he received a Wheeler Centre Fellowship in 2022.
Melanie Ashe

Melanie Ashe is undertaking her doctorate at the School of Film, Media and Journalism at Monash University. Her research is interested in the environmental materiality of film production and culture. Her current project investigates how Mad Max 2, among other films, was filmed on-location in far west NSW.

ACMI

Lido Cinemas

675 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn VIC 3122

Thanks.

The Environmental Film Festival Australia is a 100% volunteer-run festival. Thank you to everyone who helped make this event happen.

EFFA Team | Alex Riches, Alice Wu, Anastasia Warmuth, Catherine Dunbar, Cathy Rodda, Chi Ngo, Connor Dragoi, Ellie Hansford, Freyja Gillard, Helen Mayers, Janine Fabienne Fritschi, Jasmine Burridge, Kim Senior, Lachie Toms, Loren Kampers, Malvika Pandey, Matilda Brown, Matt Bray, Melissa Pineda, Michal Krawczyk, Peti Waretini, Phuong Nguyen, Qiran Wang, Saaro Umar, Sagarika Bhatnagar, Simon Troon, Tor Evans, Zac Roberts

Special thanks to | Belinda Smaill, Melanie Ashe, Hannah Chin and the Lido Team, J.R. Burgmann and Tilly Boleyn,