Echoes Programme
The Aegean Film Festival has set the annual goal of driving measurable environmental change and educating future generations about the climate emergency. To support this mission, we introduced the Echoes Programme, an international summit where filmmakers, scientists, and environmentalists share compelling stories. Featuring documentary screenings, panel talks, workshops, re-wilding and other environmental initiatives, Echoes fosters the dialogue on sustainability, supporting emerging artists and benefiting island communities.
Location Greece: Sustainability Standard
In 2025, the Aegean Film Festival will once again host the Location Greece: Sustainability Standard workshop, following last year’s successful launch. Created in collaboration with EKOMED (Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center – Creative Greece), this initiative is shaping Greece’s first national guidelines for sustainable film production. The two-day workshop brings together audiovisual professionals, sustainability experts and public institutions to develop tools and standards to encourage low-impact production.
Developed with the technical expertise of consulting company Fourthmore, the Project Housekeeping guides the Aegean Film Festival’s sustainability transformation through 2030. In 2024, the festival recorded its first full greenhouse gas emissions report and created an ESG-aligned roadmap selecting Sustainable Development Goals to focus its efforts. In addition, single-use plastic was replaced, PVC banners were upcycled into beach bags, and T-shirts and tote bags into a new, sustainable collection.
Rewilding Project
During its 13th edition, the Aegean Film Festival launched a reforestation project in collaboration with the local environmental non-profit organization Community of Trees, reflecting its dedication to addressing environmental issues impacting local communities. During the initial phase of the project, supported by donations gathered during the festival, 300 native trees, shrubs, and aromatic plants were planted to create a self-sustaining local ecosystem that prevents erosion and restores ecological balance, deepening the connection between the community and its natural environment.
Track Record
Since launching its environmental focus in 2017, the Aegean Film Festival has evolved into a platform for sustainable storytelling and climate action:
2017 – Echoes environmental programme launched with seminars, screenings and an expanded advisory board including BAFTA and Emmy-winning director Nicholas Brown, as well as leading marine conservation ecologist Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara.
2018 – The festival expanded across the islands of Patmos and Paros over 12 days, with Echoes becoming an official part of the programme.
2019 – First 4-day edition of Echoes held at the Environmental & Cultural Park of Paros
2021 – Echoes received the auspices of UNESCO; Rescript the Future launched with Adobe, WaterBear and NBCUniversal as a script competition for young storytellers, offering up to €25,000 in production support for bold, visionary ideas.
2022 – Presentation of the Festival Alliance for the Climate, an international network enhancing the distribution and visibility of environmental films and promoting sustainable practices in the film industry
2023 – Launching of rewilding efforts in collaboration with the Community of Trees
2024 – Location Greece: Sustainability Standard workshop introduced with the support of EKOME and the WaterBear Network to shape Greece’s first guidelines for sustainable film production
For its 2025 edition, the Echoes Environmental Programme aims to reinforce connections between environmental advocacy and the creative industries, emphasizing the interdependence of nature and the arts.
Until the Orchid Blooms
Directed by Polen Ly
Genre: Environmental Documentary
Duration: 103′
Production Year, Country: 2024, Cambodia, France
Language: Central Khmer
Subtitles: English, Greek
Rating: PG
In Cambodia, Neang, an Indigenous mother, tries to rebuild her life after her village is submerged by a dam reservoir. Despite pressure from the government and industrial developers to abandon her ancestral land, she fights to preserve the unity of her family and community. Rooted in memory and a deep connection to nature, Until the Orchid Blooms recounts her journey of resilience.
Premiere
Saturday, 19 July • 20.30 • Starfish Cinema
World Premiere: International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2024
ECHOES SHORTS
Sunday, 20 July • 22.30 • Starfish Cinema • 89'
The Mushroom Keepers
Premiere • Documentary • 16’ • India • 2024
Director: Naveed Mulki
Language: English, Hindi
Subtitles: English
Directed by Naveed Mulki for Fungi Foundation India, the movie explores the deep connections between fungi and the Khasi and Garo communities of Meghalaya, India. This short documentary delves into how fungi shape spiritual and cultural worldviews, revealing the intertwined loss of biodiversity and ancestral knowledge as old-growth forests diminish. Through intimate conversations with community elders, the film serves as both a reflection on cultural erosion and a call to action. It embodies the Fungi Foundation’s mission to foster research, education, and conservation of fungi while preserving the cosmovisions nurtured by fungal wisdom.
We Will Grow
Premiere • Documentary • 25’ • UK • 2025
Director: Areti Pagoulatou
Language: Greek
Subtitles: English
During the summer of 2023, Rhodes was ravaged by the worst wildfires in the island’s history, burning over 18,000 hectares of land. During the eleven days that the wildfires lasted, the residents of the island put their lives on hold to volunteer, organizing on a grassroots level to create an alternative support network, exposing the lack of personnel and equipment available to manage natural disasters in Greece. We Will Grow visits the island nine months after the wildfires. The film follows the activists who emerged during the disaster as they reflect on their experience and loss, and as they begin to put measures in place to prevent future wildfires.
Time To Change
Premiere • Experimental • 6’ • Angola, Portugal • 2024
Director: Pocas Pascoal
Language: –
Subtitles: –
Colonization, like a forced and destructive transplant, leads to ruin, desolation, and the enslavement of fauna, flora and humans.
The Third Landscape
Premiere • Documentary, Experimental • 12’ • Spain • 2024
Director: Julen Etxebarria
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English
The fungus Microsphaerella dearnessi, which affects the insignis pine variety, has expanded across the landscape of the Basque Country, even infecting the painted forest of Oma, the artwork of the artist Agustin Ibarrola.
I Walk While Glaciers Melt
Premiere • Animation, Documentary, Experimental • 9’ • Peru, UK • 2024
Director: Lucia Lambarri Barberis
Language: English, Quechua, Spanish
Subtitles: English
This visual essay combines animation and live-action footage to guide the audience through the Andean mountains and snowy peaks of Cusco, Peru. The film reflects on the director’s walking as a means to embrace life’s fragility and constant transformation. It revisits Andean relational animism, rituals, miniatures, and pilgrimage to question modernity and our place in an era of melting glaciers, while celebrating the shared journey with others.
Trinitario - On The Edge
Premiere • Documentary • 21’ • Trinidad & Tobago, Germany • 2024
Director: Denise Speck, Oliver Milne
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Trinitario – On The Edge is a 16mm analog short documentary directed by Denise Speck and Oliver Milne. The documentary is about stories in the cocoa industry in Trinidad and Tobago that are worth being told. Four cocoa farmers across Trinidad share their unique perspectives on the past, present, and future of cocoa farming in the Caribbean twin island; narratives told by the farmers themselves. The co-directors’ focus is to create an empowering narrative about what it means to be a farmer, and how the prevalent challenges of farmers across the region can be overcome innovatively by combining generational wisdom and living in harmony with the surroundings. Trinitario – On The Edge inspires the magic of Trinitario Cocoa, protecting the rich cultural heritage of the twin islands and returning to a more connected life.
The Town That Drove Away
Directed by Natalia Pietsch, Grzegorz Piekarski
Genre: Environmental Documentary
Duration: 70′
Production Year, Country: 2025, Poland
Language: Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish
Subtitles: English, Greek
Rating: PG
In Kurdistan, an ancient town with millennia of history vanishes beneath the waters of a massive dam project initiated by the Turkish government. In the name of modern progress, centuries-old traditions are erased, homes are replaced with concrete buildings, and residents face arbitrary rules that strip them of identity, autonomy, and livelihood. As the past is drowned, only family pride and a fragile sense of dignity remain.
Premiere
Monday, 21 July • 20.30 • Starfish Cinema
World Premiere: Visions Du Reel 2025
Awards: Special Youth Jury Award for Medium-Length Film at Visions du Réel 2025
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