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person or book cover
Screen cap from promotional trailer
form y separately published work icon Head On single work   film/TV  
Adaptation of Loaded Christos Tsiolkas , 1995 single work novel
Issue Details: First known date: 1998... 1998 Head On
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Set over the course of one night, Head On focuses on Ari, a handsome nineteen-year-old boy of Greek descent who finds himself torn between his traditional upbringing and his sexual identity. As he attempts to come to terms with where he fits in, Ari careens between hanging out with his friends and bickering with his family while also becoming involved in several heterosexual and homosexual encounters.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Gender and Sexual Diversity and Suicide on Australian Screens : Culture, Representation, and Health Pedagogies Rob Cover , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Popular Culture , April vol. 54 no. 2 2021; (p. 365-387)

'Despite an often‐repeated cliché that gender and sexually diverse characters are relatively absent from film and television, Australian screen production has a very rich history of representing sexual and gender diversity: greater than nineteen wide‐release films since 1993, including internationally recognized films such as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), The Sum of Us (1994), Head On (1998), and The Monkey’s Mask (2000), portray gender and sexual diversity. Nine Australian films with LGBTQ, gender, and sexually diverse themes were released between 2013 and 2018, indicating an entrenchment of LGBTQ representation on Australian screens. Characters in major Australian television dramas and soap operas, such as Home and Away and Neighbours, have increased in regularity and complexity over the past two decades. Sexual stories, including narratives of minority sexual lives, have never, of course, been repressed or invisible, but according to Ken Plummer, they have long been central to contemporary Western culture (4). Stories representing gender and sexually diverse subjects depicting identity struggles and articulating minority health outcomes are a major and ongoing part of Australian creative production. What is significant in cultural analysis is not questions of visibility or invisibility but how the continuities and disruptions of depictions of gender and sexual minorities play a significant, pedagogical role in social participation, social harmony, acceptance, individual health and wellbeing, and community belonging (Cover, Queer Youth SuicideEmergent Identities).' (Introduction)

More Than Just a Gay Pun : the Changing Nature of Australian Queer Film Criticism Stuart Richards , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 13 no. 2-3 2019; (p. 51-66)

'This essay looks at the critical reception of Australian queer cinema demonstrating the difference in reviews of queer Australian films. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Elliot, Stephan. 1994. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Sydney: Roadshow Distribution) and The Sum of Us (Dowling, Kevin, and Geoff Burton. 1994. The Sum of Us. Sydney: Southern Star) will be compared to films that came later in the 1990s, notably Love and Other Catastrophes (Croghan, Emma-Kate. 1996. Love and Other Catastrophes. Sydney: Fox Searchlight), The Well (Lang, Samantha. 1997. The Well. Sydney: Southern Star) and Head On (Kokkinos, Ana. 1998. Head On. Melbourne: Umbrella Entertainment). These later films managed to generate buzz on the queer film festival circuit as well as at general international film festivals. Their queerness attracts international LGBTQ audiences while, secondly, genre-related elements have the potential to attract a wider cinephile audience. I will utilise paratextual elements, particularly reviews during their film festival and theatrical runs, to demonstrate how they cross-over to wider audiences. In investigating their framing and reception, these films increasingly engage audiences through their genre signifiers. This essay demonstrates that the discourse around Australian queer cinema has matured to offer multi-faceted perspectives.' (Publication abstract)

‘Head On’ : The Film That Helped Change Australian Culture Con Stamocostas , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , January 2019;

'Twenty years after making its mark on Australian cinema, Neos Kosmos looks back on 1998 cult film 'Head On'' 

Where Is Ana Kokkinos? Con Stamocostas , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , November 2018;

''Ana Kokkinos’s work in film has centred on the outsider, especially in terms of sexuality and what it is to be Greek Australian told in exhilarating and, at times, brutal truth.'  (Introduction)

Craig Boreham : Teenage Kicks at Mardi Gras Erin Free , 2017 single work column
— Appears in: FilmInk , 21 February 2017;
'I Will Survive!' : Australia's 10 Best LGBT Films Luke Buckmaster , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 7 April 2016;

— Review of The Getting Of Wisdom Eleanor Witcombe , 1978 single work film/TV ; The Sum of Us David Stevens , 1994 single work film/TV ; 52 Tuesdays Matthew Cormack , Sophie Hyde , 2014 single work film/TV ; The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Stephan Elliott , 1994 single work film/TV ; Head On Andrew Bovell , Ana Kokkinos , Mira Robertson , 1998 single work film/TV ; Love and Other Catastrophes Stavros Kazantzidis , Yael Bergman , 1996 single work film/TV ; Remembering the Man Eleanor Sharpe , Nick Bird , 2015 single work film/TV ; The Suicide Theory Michael J. Kospiah , 2014 single work film/TV
A Sin that Dare Not Speak Its Name Ivan Canadas , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Summer no. 177 2004; (p. 43-47)
y separately published work icon Adaptations : A Guide to Adapting Literature to Film Denise Faithfull , Brian Hannant , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2007 Z1361797 2007 single work criticism Adaptations discusses approaches to adaptations of various forms of literature using a range of Australian texts and films as examples.
Escaping History and Shame in Looking for Alibrandi, Head On and Beneath the Clouds Felicity Collins , Therese Davis , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Cinema after Mabo 2004; (p. 152-171)
In this chapter Collins and Davis analyse how the films, Looking for Alibrandi, Head On and Beneath the Clouds 'invites us to consider the relation between the past and the present .' The authors argue that the stories these films tell, regarding 'coming of age, reveal a picture of young Australians as the inheritors of a nation divided on issues of race relations, land politics, national security, and how best to deal with the shameful episodes from our colonial past.' Although these films differ in style and content they express a common 'form of teen mobility fuelled by the desire to 'escape history' ... that is symptomatic of the specific difficulties of coming of age in post-Mabo Australia.' Source : Australian Cinema after Mabo (2004).
Head On : Multicultural Representations of Australian Identity in 1990s National Cinema James Bennett , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , vol. 1 no. 1 2007; (p. 61-78)
'Suffused with a sense that earlier filmic imaginings of Australian identity were "beginning to look threadbare" (Turner 1994a: 68), 1990s Australian cinema provides a key site for the examination of Australian identity in multicultural terms. Drawing on the work of Ghassan Hage (1998, 2003), Stuart Hall (1990, 1993) and Daniel Nourry (2005), this article investigates how notions of Australian identity in a multicultural society are played out (and with) by Australian cinema of the 1990s. Particular attention is paid to Head On (Kokkinos, 1998) and Strictly Ballroom (Lurhmann, 1992), as examples of different approaches to this issue. Enlisting a Bakhtinian approach, whereby identity is conceived in terms of "thinking from the margins", I argue that whilst films such as Strictly Ballroom enlist a "good multiculturalism" to extend, through tolerance, the boundaries of Australian identity to the Other, Head On provides a way of thinking about Australian-ness that refuses to simply assimilate or incorporate its Greek-Australian protagonist. By co-opting the audience to a position on the margins of society, Head On opens up a notion of Australian identity that is not only or simply hybrid, but also never finally fixed (Hall 1990).

Source: Studies in Australasian Cinema 1.1 (2007): 61. (Sighted 01/09/2009).

y separately published work icon 'Head On' Alice Kim , Perth : Centre for Research in Culture and Communication (Murdoch University) , 2001 Z1670732 2001 single work criticism Research undertaken by a student of the Centre for Culture and Communication (Murdoch University) into Head On (1998). Includes aspects relating to the production phase, critical reception, principal performers and production crew, references and a synopsis.

Awards

1999 Nominated Film Critics Circle of Australia Best Screenplay - Adapted
1998 Winner AWGIE Awards Feature Film - Adaptation
1998 Nominated Australian Film Institute Awards Best Screenplay Adapted from Another Source
Last amended 11 Mar 2015 14:42:08
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