Harper.

Jordan Giusti’s powerful documentary Floodland, winner of the prestigious Sustainable Future Award at the 2025 Sydney Film Festival, is set to arrive in cinemas nationwide on 26 February. Produced by Mofa Stories, the film brings to the screen an intimate portrait of Australia’s most expensive climate disaster and the community caught in its wake, as the four-year anniversary of the record-breaking 2022 floods nears.

Following three years embedded in the Northern NSW town of Lismore, Australia’s most flood-prone postcode, Giusti captures the raw humanity behind the headlines of the devastating 2022 floods that saw waters reach a catastrophic 14.36 metres, destroying homes, lives, and testing the limits of a community’s legendary resilience.

At the heart of the film is Eli, a lifelong Lismore resident who bought his childhood dream home backing onto the Wilson River. In the aftermath of the devastating floods that forced him onto his roof and out of his home, a chance meeting with Jess amid the cleanup sparked an unlikely love story. However, with more loss and hardship still to come, Eli faces an impossible choice: leave the town he’s fought to save, or risk his new family’s future in a place where climate disasters are becoming the norm.

Intimate and immersive, Floodland goes beyond the disaster narrative to reveal how political complacency, stalled buyback schemes, and inequality fracture even the tightest communities. Eli’s friend Harper turns to grassroots activism when government support fails to materialise. Meanwhile, Dr Carlie Atkinson, a Bundjalung and Yiman social worker and international leader in trauma healing, offers a powerful alternative vision where First Nations knowledge guides healing, planning, and respect for Country.

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“I hope this film can spur some change,” said director Jordan Giusti upon winning the Sustainable Future Award, the largest cash prize in the world dedicated to environmentally engaged cinema. “What you find is people who love their home being pushed to these extremes and asking: can we continue if it’s going to keep getting this bad? It’s heartbreaking. These beautiful communities that live in a very unique way are the first to feel the impacts of climate change, and they might be lost. There’s a real sense of grief in the film.”

For Eli, the decisions he’s faced with represents both defeat and hope, saying: “You can’t fight the river forever. I love Lismore more than anywhere in the world, but when you’re watching your family live in fear every time it rains, you have to accept that some battles aren’t meant to be won, and accepting painful realities is the bravest thing you can do.”

Through the story of Floodland, audiences across Australia will be confronted with challenging questions about belonging, resilience, and the cost of rebuilding in an era of escalating climate disasters. With stunning cinematography that captures both the beauty of the Northern Rivers and the devastation wrought by rising waters, the film stands as both a warning and a testament to the quiet persistence of hope.

Floodland will screen in cinemas nationwide from 26 February. If you’re in Central Queensland, you can catch the film at the Capricorn Film Festival on January 17. 

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