Image: 6 Festivals (2022). Source: Hype Republic.
In Macário De Souza’s 2022 debut feature film, 6 Festivals, three music-loving friends attend a bucket list of lineups. Over six months the teen trio chase musical escapism, care deeply for one another and experience bursts of maturity. The film traces character arcs that we are familiar with; there are powerful moments of change as the characters reckon with each of their adverse circumstances and navigate who they want to be. In its nuanced portrayals of adolescent friendship, grief and live music experiences, the film offers a unique contribution to the Australian coming-of-age genre. It’s the kind of film I wish I had growing up.
6 Festivals holds several tender and formative moments. I was struck by a scene depicting the three central characters sitting hunched on the lawn of a music festival, illuminated by the flashing lights of the concert ahead. Shoulder-to-shoulder, they hold space for each other and hold the weight of each other’s pain. It’s a turning point for Maxie (Rasmus King). He cries as his friends hold him.
Maxie: I don’t want to be like them.
James: You’re nothing like them.
It’s in these intense moments that we come to understand who we are and what we value—and they are the defining experiences of a young person’s development that the best teen films capture in depth. Coming-of-age refers to the transition from childhood to adulthood, which is often not a single instance but made up of several moments of conflict, a budding sense of self and bursts of maturity. This moment of vulnerability is heartbreaking and beautiful, and it wrapped me up in the tenderness of this trio.
The coming-of-age genre never ceases to generate interest. These narratives often provide core insights into the human experience, so their popularity is unsurprising. Some of the most successful Australian films have been teen movies—Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Puberty Blues (1981) and Looking for Alibrandi (2000) are ranked as some of the highest-grossing Australian films of all time. However, local films of this genre are few and far between. Screen media professor Kelly McWilliam estimates that approximately one Australian coming-of-age film is released per year.
Left to right: Film posters from Picnic at Hanging Rock, Puberty Blues and Looking for Alibrandi. Source: Imdb.com.
Growing up, the general consensus was that local films were cringe. Perhaps it was partly the self-deprecating psyche that renders us with little pride in our own cinema, coupled with early exposure to films centring on crocodiles, over-accentuated Strayan accents and red-dirt-country-bush settings that seemed unrelatable to city kids like myself.
Growing up, the general consensus was that local films were cringe.
The media that surrounds us is generally saturated by American content. My childhood and teenage years were largely informed by American films and a handful of British ones. Some hit closer to home for me, like Bend It Like Beckham with its representation of the Indian diaspora. Australian teen films were so absent from my adolescence that I lit up seeing our icons in American movies—Olivia Newton-John in Grease (1978) and Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). The ‘Australian in the American school’ seemed to be characterised as a quirky, misplaced outsider trope—and that persona with Australian speech cadences signified relatability (and a little national pride too) in my childhood and teenage years.
Left to right: Olivia Newton-John in Grease (1978), Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). Source: Imdb.com.
Despite this, as a teenager I didn’t even consider whether I needed homegrown stories. Today, I find that I’m searching for them. There is something deeply affecting and heartening in seeing our own norms, issues and locations reflected back at us—at times validating, or startlingly real and worth interrogating.
6 Festivals offers a fresh alternative to all the Hollywood teen movies I had seen in my youth. Hammering on Australian nuances, the film is peppered with overt local stamps—from a surfing scene to the repeated ‘cheers cunt’, and the opening scene that features three friends on a boat drinking cask wine from the bag and singing Powderfinger’s ‘My Happiness’. Pretty Strayan. But it’s kind of endearing with the wholesome friendship of our main trio. It’s a step away from my direct reality, but undoubtedly familiar to its specific context.
As a teenager I didn’t even consider whether I needed homegrown stories. Today, I find that I’m searching for them.
The authenticity that 6 Festivals provided was more than simply the Aussie slang and the novelty of goon on screen. In high school, I was one of those kids who never dated or went to house parties with alcohol, making all the American teen movies a far cry from my reality. I didn’t know if it was all a Hollywood myth or I was a deprived, inexperienced teenager too deeply engaged in reading, writing and playing music. It wasn’t that 6 Festivals validated my nerdy adolescence but rather it represented integral aspects of my teenagehood by centralising friendship, music and the exhilaration of live concerts.
Being a musician in my school years, I spent a lot of time bonding with friends over music, jamming on instruments, singing together and sharing concert experiences. This was one of the greatest joys of high school (and life), and I hear this echoed among other musicians. Watching 6 Festivals, we see young people living their music dreams: Summer singing and writing music; James trying his hand at organising music festivals and playing on stage with his favourite band. These are some of the most resonant, hopeful and lucid images I could have seen as a nerdy muso teenager.
De Souza’s use of real Australian music festival footage makes 6 Festivals a large showcase of Australian music talent; the film creates realistic, immersive concert experiences—the most authentic I have ever seen onscreen in a local context. The film is constructed almost purely in snapshots of the six events that the friends attend—each a different stage of grief and identity development for individual characters. What is constant is their commitment and support for each other while they each tackle their own obstacles.
The film also subverts the teenager with cancer archetype. Remember the spiral of teen romance cancer tragedies that John Green’s film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars inspired? Not every teenager with a terminal illness has a grand romance at the end of their life. It’s refreshing and honest to see a teen cancer film with music and friendship at the forefront.
6 Festivals offers a fresh alternative to all the Hollywood teen movies I had seen in my youth.
The recent success of Netflix’s remake of Heartbreak High (2022–) demonstrates that there is definitely demand for Australian coming-of-age stories—both nationally and internationally. The series hit first place on Australian Netflix during its debut week. It has also ranked within the top 10 most-watched shows in 45 countries. The series seemed to hit the juicy sex-love-drugs formula we are seeing across other successful teen shows internationally, such as Euphoria (2019–), Sex Education (2019–) and Never Have I Ever (2020–). While these experiences are real and valid and worth exploring, teenage narratives without love and sex seem to be an anomaly now. Perhaps it’s an audience expectation and producers are hesitant to break this formula for fear that they will lose viewers. Sex sells, they say. Compounding this is the pedestal on which society places romantic relationships, deeming platonic relationships inferior. In reality—and in 6 Festivals—platonic relationships can be just as (or even more) important, yet this is not what our screens generally reflect.
However, it’s reductive to claim that it’s sexual tension alone that enables a coming-of-age film or series to reach mainstream success. Heartbreak High has achieved far more than being an exciting and highly contemporary hot teen love drama. The television show’s wide reach has been attributed to its unparalleled strides in authenticity and diversity, as well as how it approaches tackling consent, sex education, ableism and racism with nuance in a uniquely Australian context.
The best examples of coming of age on screen in this country reflect the diversity of our young people and the nuances in transitional phases of life. In 6 Festivals, the trajectory of two female First Nations emerging music artists provides space to consider the unique challenges for women of colour in music. The film’s deep dive into music festival culture from the perspectives of both the teenage attendees and artists is unprecedented in Australian cinema.
There is definitely demand for Australian coming-of-age stories—both nationally and internationally.
Other recent coming-of-age films are hopeful in how they expand the experiences and identities that the genre can focus on. ABC’s Kaleidoscope Project of short films reflects the second-generation migrant experiences of children and tweens in tender narratives of family, identity, sexuality and cultural appropriation. This year indie films Of an Age and Sweet As hit the big screens—the first a teen queer romantic awakening, the latter the story of a young Indigenous woman’s transformation on a youth retreat.
On TV screens, Stan series Bad Behaviour tackles cruel power dynamics among teen girls at a bush boarding school and the struggle to belong, while ABC’s Turn Up the Volume follows a group of girls and gender non-conforming teenagers from all walks of life who form a band and explore their identities. A second season of Heartbreak High is also on the horizon.
It seems that audiences are eager to see our varied realities reflected in teen dramas, and there is promise that more local films and series are headed in that direction.
6 Festivals can be streamed on Paramount+.
