Mad Max – tracking climate change through Australian films

What can we learn about the state of our environment through films made in Australia? Quite a lot, according to the new Seeing Green podcast.

This article was co-written by Associate Professor Belinda Smaill of Monash University and film scholar and PhD candidate Melanie Ashe.

We wouldn’t be the first to point out the Mad Max series of films visualise a future of ultimate climate catastrophe. Dusty and resource-scarce, civilisation as we know it has collapsed and is now overrun by lawless gangs.

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Dr Belinda Smaill is Professor of Film and Screen Studies at Monash University. She has been writing about Australian documentary for more than two decades. Recently her work has focused on the ethical, cultural and institutional issues that shape the representation of the environment and biodiversity. She is the author of The Documentary: Politics, Emotion, Culture and Regarding Life: Animals and the Documentary Moving Image.