Head-On

Set among Hamburg's Turkish community, and in Istanbul, Faith Akin's postpunk romance Head-On has captured dozens of festival awards—among them, last year's top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival and the European Film Award for best film. Faith Akin's Head-On is celebrated as the first "ethnic" film to be both a box-office and a critical sensation in Germany, suggesting a new openness to multicultural experiences. The film chronicles an incendiary romance between two burned-out Turkish-German lost souls joined in a marriage of convenience—a wannabe actress taking extreme measures to escape her Muslim family and an aging punk rocker still addicted to a drug-fueled lifestyle. Time Out asked, "Could Head-On be the strangest, sweetest love story since Sid and Nancy?"
(118 mins.)


support credits

Season support provided by the Rohauer Collection Foundation and the Corporate Annual Fund of the Wexner Center Foundation.

Contemporary films, international films, and visiting filmmakers presented with support from the Ohio Arts Council.