Mad Max 2 and an Evening of Speculative Futures

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.