It's finally here! After months of careful curation, passionate discussions, and far too much coffee, we're thrilled to unveil our most ambitious LandxSea Film Festival programme yet! Three days of cinema and community to spark your imagination, fire up your curiousity, and ignite your activist heart!
Browse our films and events, and book tickets! 🎟️
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From 12-14 September 2025, we're bringing you a jam-packed weekend of inspiring films, events, and thought-provoking conversations designed to challenge, delight, and foster deeper connections with our planet and each other.
We've got 22 new films from around the world - including 7 Scottish premieres, 1 World premiere, Q&As with more than 30 filmmakers and special guests, panel discussions, and events highlighting the most pressing environmental issues and inviting you to learn, engage, and create meaningfully towards building a sustainable future.
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Film still from Yanuni, our closing night film (and Scottish premiere). Filmmaker Richard Ladkani and producer Anita Ladkani will join us for a Q&A after the film - Sunday 14th at 7.30pm
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Just a few highlights from our bumper-packed programme:
We open the festival with the Scottish premiere of Lost For Words, a poetic journey across Britain’s landscapes and seasons, inspired by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s beloved book The Lost Words, and close with the Scottish premiere of Yanuni, a thrilling eco doc produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, following Brazilian Indigenous chief Juma Xipaia as she fights to protect the Amazon and the future of her unborn child.
Our centrepiece premiere is Lowland Kids, set on Louisiana’s sinking Isle de Jean Charles, where two Indigenous teens and their uncle become America’s first climate refugees, forced to choose between home and higher ground.
Joining us for 'In Conversation' sessions are screenwriter David Macpherson of hit Scottish TV show The Rig - sharing his experiences of bringing North Sea Oil stories to the screen, and artist and author of Belonging, A Scots Dictionary of Nature Amanda Thomson, discussing language, place, and environmental change.
Filmmakers and special guests joining us for Q&As include BAFTA-winner Morag Mckinnon and acclaimed Scottish composer Jim Sutherland, intrepid underwater cameraman Peter van Rodijnen, Edinburgh-based Mexican filmmaker Itandehui Jansen, acclaimed filmmaker Virginia Heath presenting the World premiere of her new short film alongside singer alongside musician Rick Anthony (aka Rick Redbeard) with music by Afterlands. Award-winning filmmaker Richard Ladkani joins us on our closing night after the screening of the Scottish premiere of his film, Yanuni.
View all the visiting filmmakers and special guests at this year's festival here.
And that's just a teaser!
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Our theme this year is Creative Ground: Artists Respond to the Climate, celebrating artists as truth-tellers and change-makers. Inspired by Sea Change, Montrose's new embedded artist project, our programme showcases painters, musicians, poets, and performers making sense of a changing world and helping us find ways to find creative and meaningful solutions together as a community.
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Still from Tracing Light by Thomas Riedelsheimer. The film's producer Sonja Henrici, and executive producer Leslie Hills will join us for a Q&A following the film's Scottish premiere on Saturday 13 Sept 4:40pm.
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L-R: Karen Ridgewell, Katherine Bruce, Daniesky Acosta
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North Light Award 🏆
Our annual juried North Light Award, taking place during the festival, shines a light on bold Scottish filmmaking that reimagines our relationship with the natural world. With a £500 cash prize, it honours originality, impact, and creative vision in environmental storytelling. Finalists screen throughout the weekend, with the winner announced at Closing Night.
2025 Jury:
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Daniesky Acosta, DaniFilms
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Katherine Bruce, Executive Director, Planet in Focus, Canada
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Karen Ridgewell, Climate Emergency & Sustainability Lead, Creative Scotland
Films in Competition:
- In the Flame We Reveal Ourselves
- Itu Ninu
- Lost for Words
- The Pine Hunters
- Tracing Light
- When Fish Begin to Crawl
- The World We Make is Shaped by the Stories We Tell
North Light Award Sponsor: Lisa Kentgen
Festival awards handmade in Montrose by Irene Hughes Pottery/The Clay Half
Experience the talent of this year's finalists on the big screen at LandxSea 2025, this 12-14 September.
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Thank You to Our Festival Partners
LandxSea wouldn't be possible without the incredible support of our sponsors, filmmakers, volunteers, and audiences. This is a festival built by and for the community, and we so grateful to have you as part of it.
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