The bigger things in life – love, death, family, friendship, sex – are hard enough to fully grasp in one’s adult years.
Imagine, then, what happens when it all comes hurtling at you with full force before you’re even legally allowed to drink. This, on the surface, is what Teenage Kicks deals with. Craig Boreham’s new independent Australian film, shot in and around Sydney, takes some large-scale issues and gives them a name, a face and a location, driving them home even further.
“I used to be a youth worker at a place that was an advocate for homeless queer youth – we would provide a place to stay if they had nowhere else to go,” begins director and writer Boreham. “In the time that I worked there, I came across a lot of different stories concerning internal family conflicts around sexuality and coming out. That’s where the story got its spark. There have been a lot of films made about that theme, though, so I think that I was originally uncertain about it. I didn’t think that there was anything I could contribute that hadn’t already been said. At the same time that this was happening, my partner lost his brother and went through a very intense period of grief. When I began writing again, this idea of immediate loss of someone extremely close to you was inextricable. I realised the future of this story was this blend between a struggle of sexual identity and of dealing with the loss of a loved one.”
At a time when there is a drought of movies not inherently concerned with straight white males, Teenage Kicks can be viewed as subversive for its focus on characters who are not only people of colour, but also fluid in their sexuality and subsequent exploration of it. According to Boreham, he began shifting his focus to this element of character development upon further exploring both the ideas behind queerness and an interest in moving past predefined gender roles for young people.
“I was thinking a lot about the LGBTIQ community,” says Boreham, who himself is openly gay. “That ‘Q’ lingered in my head. There is a queer and questioning part of the community that doesn’t get talked about that much. I wanted to create a character that didn’t define their sexuality so rigidly – someone who perhaps hadn’t entirely worked everything out just yet. A lot of young people don’t want a label placed upon themselves – they don’t so much want to be placed in a box in terms of their gender or their sexual orientation. That’s something I really wanted to explore with Mik as a character. It was very interesting to write something away from that well-worn white Anglo experience, and working with characters connected to a racial minority not always looked upon in the mainstream. It’s a different experience, and you don’t see it very much. It changes things.”
Teenage Kicks centres around 17-year-old Miklós (played by Miles Szanto), who lives with his family in suburban southern Sydney. His life is turned upside down by the shocking and untimely death of his older brother, Tomi; a death only he knows the true story behind. The film also deals with Miklós’ family, his friends and his love interests – the latter two, in particular, increasingly overlapping as the film progresses. Szanto has previously appeared in Australian dramas such as Love My Way and The Elephant Princess, and has collaborated before with Boreham, who knew from the outset that he wanted Szanto involved in the film.
“He’s been working in television since he was eight years old,” Boreham says. “We’d worked together on a short film previously, so I knew from the outset that I wanted him attached to it. He understood the role completely, and that’s exactly what I needed when it came to casting – there’s a lot of dark stuff in this film, and there’s a lot going on at any given time. Dan [Webber] has been working a long time, too – he actually just finished working on 11.22.63 with J.J. Abrams over in the States, where he played Lee Harvey Oswald. When it came to the rest of the cast, I knew we had to have people on board that were committed and enthusiastic, that fit the roles and embraced them.”
This June will see Teenage Kicks have its debut screening as part of Sydney Film Festival – including an encore screening five days later – as well as an inclusion at Newcastle’s Travelling Film Festival. Although Boreham is going through the usual nerves before unveiling such a project – especially one that has taken up a big part of his life in recent times – he awaits the initial reaction with great anticipation.
“I’m excited to see it with an audience,” he says. “We’ve done a handful of test screenings before, but the audience has almost always been connected to the project in one way or another. I’m curious to see the reactions of an audience that knows nothing about the movie going into it. You see what makes them laugh, what affects them, what moves them. It’s not always in the exact place that you think it’s going to be. It’s always a bit terrifying, but I get so much out of it.”
Teenage Kicks [dir.Craig Boreham]shows as part of Sydney Film Festival 2016at Event Cinemas George Street on Saturday June 11, thenDendy Newtown onThursday June 16.
