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Mikko Makela and James Watson’s UK production company Bêtes Sauvages is expanding into Finland, where the firm will work on both Finnish and international projects.

Bêtes Sauvages Finland was launched at last week’s Finnish Film Affair, the industry strand of Helsinki International Film Festival – Love and Anarchy (Hiff).

The company’s inaugural slate includes a TV adaptation of Finnish novelist Pajtim Statovci’s 2019 novel Bolla, a love story about a man fleeing the Kosovan war of the 1990s.

Through its UK base, Bêtes Sauvages produced Makela’s second feature Sebastian, which premiered at Sundance in January, in co-production with Finland’s Helsinki-film,...

“Max leaps into someone’s eyes as they are jerking off whilst Max thrusts into him.”

Ok, maybe that’s not verbatim a line from Finnish writer/director Mikko Mäkelä’s “Sebastian” screenplay. That’s Mäkelä demonstrating how specific his script was about the gay sex he wanted to make happen onscreen. This provocative drama, a Sundance 2024 premiere, stars newcomer Ruaridh Mollica as Max, a 25-year-old writer who submerges himself in London’s underground world of escort services in order to research a novel about a sex worker. Posing as his protagonist, Max accepts money, travel, and more from older men in exchange for on-demand sex in cold hotel beds and elsewhere, sending Max in a spiral the movie shows in explicit terms, and while not shying from the twinky beauty of its lead.

“I don’t think I approached it so much from the point of view of thinking about sexiness,...

Black Bear’s management arm has signed Mikko Mäkelä, the Finnish-British writer and director of “Sebastian.” Mäkelä is a rising force in international queer cinema having made movies that explore sexuality and identity.

Mäkelä’s directorial debut “A Moment in the Reeds” premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and screened at nearly a hundred festivals worldwide, including Göteborg Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival and Frameline in San Francisco. The film was nominated for the “Discovery Award” at the 2018 British Independent Film Awards.

Mäkelä’s sophomore feature, “Sebastian,” premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2024 and was embraced by critics. The film will be distributed by Kino Lorber and will be released on Aug. 2, 2024.

Mäkelä was named by IndieWire as an “LGBTQ Filmmaker on the Rise.” In its review out of Sundance, the site went on to praise “Sebastian” as a “provocative, explicit, and ultimately tender drama.

Premiering earlier this year at Sundance Film Festival, Sebastian marks the sophomore feature from writer/director Mikko Mäkelä (whose debut was the 2017 gay romance A Moment in the Reeds). Following a burgeoning young journalist who turns to sex work to research his first novel, the film was picked up by Kino Lorber for an August 2 release and the first trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Max (Ruaridh Mollica) is a 25-year-old aspiring novelist, living in London and paying his dues working at a literary magazine. Frustrated by his own ambitions and the pressures to succeed, Max begins moonlighting as a sex worker with the pseudonym Sebastian, secretly meeting men via an escorting platform and using his experiences to fuel his stories. What begins as a few furtive meetings soon becomes a hidden nocturnal life, and the debut novel that he has been longing to write finally seems within reach.

The Sundance queer drama “Sebastian,” directed by up-and-coming Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä, has been bought by Kino Lorber for U.S. distribution, along with a string of international buyers.

Represented in international markets by LevelK, the film made its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

“Sebastian” follows Max (Ruaridh Mollica), a 25-year-old freelance writer and aspiring novelist who seems well on his way to success in London’s cultural spheres. Yet by night, he finds a different kind of exhilaration as a sex worker with the pseudonym Sebastian, meeting men via an escorting platform. Max uses his experiences as Sebastian to fuel his stories, and the worthy debut novel that he has been longing to write finally seems within reach. But Max increasingly struggles to remain in control of his double-life, leading him to reckon with whether Sebastian is merely a...

Progressive take on sex work, challenging stereotypes in LGBTQ+ cinema. Offers a nuanced and empowering perspective on queer bodies, sex, and intimacy. Beautiful portrayal of a heartfelt and tender relationship between older and younger gay men.

Finnish filmmaker Mikko Mäkelä proved himself a promising gay movie director when his debut film, A Moment in the Reeds, first premiered at the London Film Festival in 2017. A subtle, yet no less sensual, queer romance about a Finnish university student, who spends one summer renovating his father's lakehouse, and a Syrian refugee hired to help out. A Moment in the Reeds foremost demonstrated Mäkelä's intentionality as a director. Between casting gay actors to play gay characters and examining Finland's political landscape at the time, there was a desire for honesty in his film that, in hindsight, would be a defining feature of late-2010s LGBTQ+ cinema.

Sebastian is Mäkelä's sophomore feature, which had...

It’s notoriously difficult to make films about writers. Writing — literally sitting down at a keyboard and banging out words — is about as fun to watch as paint drying. So filmmakers make much of the research process, the uneven economics, the epic highs and lows of creative life. “Sebastian,” the second feature from Mikko Mäkelä (“A Moment in the Reeds”), takes these liberties to new, bizarre heights, as its scribe protagonist turns to sex work to gin up inspiration for his forthcoming novel

Read More: Sundance 2024: The 23 Most Anticipated Movies To Watch

Our author is Max (Ruaridh Mollica), a navel-gazing 25-year-old who escorts online under the name Sebastian.

Continue reading ‘Sebastian’ Review: A Nakedly Solipsistic Quarter-Life Crisis About A Sex Worker [Sundance] at The Playlist.

Seven years after the premiere of A Moment in the Reeds, Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä has followed up with the Sundance World Dramatic Competition Sebastian. For his second film, Mikko Mäkelä plunges the viewer into the life of a novelist who, first as research for his own novel and then for the thrills the double life grants him, enters the world of sex work. Editor Arttu Salmi, whose previous work includes the TIFF 2023 premiere The End We Start From and both the New Man and Degeneration installments of Dau, discusses the unique circumstances of editing Sebastian on two Avids and how he found the film in the […]

The post “I Was Keen to Challenge Myself with Film Language That I Hadn’t Tried”: Editor Arttu Salmi on Sebastian first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Seven years after the premiere of A Moment in the Reeds, Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä has followed up with the Sundance World Dramatic Competition Sebastian. For his second film, Mikko Mäkelä plunges the viewer into the life of a novelist who, first as research for his own novel and then for the thrills the double life grants him, enters the world of sex work. Editor Arttu Salmi, whose previous work includes the TIFF 2023 premiere The End We Start From and both the New Man and Degeneration installments of Dau, discusses the unique circumstances of editing Sebastian on two Avids and how he found the film in the […]

The post “I Was Keen to Challenge Myself with Film Language That I Hadn’t Tried”: Editor Arttu Salmi on Sebastian first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Sebastian, Finnish-British writer-director Mikko Mäkelä’s follow-up to 2017’s A Moment in the Reeds, 25-year-old Max enters the world of sex work as research for his debut novel. These experiences alter Max’s sense of self as Max moves from hesitant to exhilarated as he throws himself deeper into his “double life.” Cinematographer Iikka Salminen, who also worked with Mäkelä on A Moment in the Reeds, discusses how he complemented the observational nature of the film by shooting it like a “moving portrait.” See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]

The post “I Prepared Myself by Digesting a Lot of Close-Ups and Portraits”: Dp Iikka Salminen on Sebastian first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Sebastian, Finnish-British writer-director Mikko Mäkelä’s follow-up to 2017’s A Moment in the Reeds, 25-year-old Max enters the world of sex work as research for his debut novel. These experiences alter Max’s sense of self as Max moves from hesitant to exhilarated as he throws himself deeper into his “double life.” Cinematographer Iikka Salminen, who also worked with Mäkelä on A Moment in the Reeds, discusses how he complemented the observational nature of the film by shooting it like a “moving portrait.” See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the […]

The post “I Prepared Myself by Digesting a Lot of Close-Ups and Portraits”: Dp Iikka Salminen on Sebastian first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Finnish-British director Mikko Mäkelä isn’t shying away from sexual content in “Sebastian,” which has its world premiere on Sunday at Sundance Film Festival.

“As was already the case with ‘A Moment in the Reeds,’ I wanted to provide a very frank and honest portrayal of queer sexuality,” he tells Variety, referencing his 2017 debut.

“For so long, queer sexuality has been shied away from and censored. It has been such a balancing act for queer filmmakers and a very unfair one, because we want to provide representation for ourselves, but we also don’t want to alienate audiences and people who finance our films. Luckily, things have improved a great deal.”

In Mäkelä’s sophomore film – competing in Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition – aspiring writer Max (Ruaridh Mollica) leads a double life as sex worker Sebastian, hoping to use his experiences in a novel. But while Max tries to...

The queer drama is directed by UK-Finnish director Mikko Makela.

LevelK has boarded international sales rights to UK feature Sebastian ahead of its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival this month.

The film is the second feature from UK-Finnish director Mikko Makela. It follows a freelance writer rising through London’s cultural world who finds exhilaration at night as a sex worker under the pseudonym Sebastian.

Ruaridh Mollica leads the cast, alongside Screen Rising Stars Scotland talent Hiftu Quasem and Jonathan Hyde.

September Films will distribute the film in the Netherlands, with Aurora handling distribution for Finland.

20 producers/producer teams will receive £2m across two years.

The BFI has selected twenty producers and producer teams to receive £2m of funding across the next two years in the first edition of the revamped Vision Awards.

The selection comes as part of a £2.5m total investment in UK producers, with 12 emerging producers also selected for the new BFI Network Insight professional development programme.

Among those chosen are Manon Ardisson and Chiara Ventura of Ardimages UK. Ardisson won the Bifa for best British independent film in 2017 for God’s Own Country, one of four prizes for the film at the ceremony.

The BFI has revealed this year’s Vision Awards, its funding awards for UK production companies. Scroll down for the list of recipients.

Those selected this year include the producers of BAFTA winner Bait, Sundance title God’s Own Country, Tiff feature Saint Maud and upcoming Kate Winslet starrer Ammonite.

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The BFI will invest up to £2M in the producers over two years. The organization has also revealed the 12 newcomers (yet to make their first feature) selected for its new professional development program BFI Network Insight.

The BFI said today that recipients of the two programs are 35% from outside London and the South East, more than 70% are female or part of a female producing duos, and more than 35% identify as underrepresented ethnicities.

Yorgos Lamthimos’ twisted period piece “The Favourite” led all films in nominations for the British Independent Film Awards (Bifa), which were announced on Wednesday in London.

The black comedy, which stars Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz in a tale of 18th century palace intrigue in England, was nominated in 13 categories, two shy of the record set last year by “Lady Macbeth.”

Its nominations come on the heels of three nominations and one award at the Gotham Independent Film Awards, which means that the film from a Greek director has been accepted as an American independent film by one awards body and as a British indie by another.

Also Read: 'The Favourite' Film Review: Emma Stone Plays an 18th Century Eve Harrington in a Twisted Historical Farce

Bart Layton’s “American Animals” was runner-up with 11 nominations, while Michael Pearce’s “Beast” received 10 and Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here...

Yorgos Lanthimos comedy to compete against American Animals, Beast, Disobedience and You Were Never Really Here.

The nominations for the 2018 British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs) were revealed today (October 31), with Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite leading the field with 13 nominations.

The historical comedy is up for best British independent film, best director and best screenplay. Olivia Colman is nominated for best actress, and her co-stars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz have both been nominated for best supporting actress.

The Favourite will compete for best film against Bart Layton’s American Animals (11 nominations), Michael Pearce’s Beast (10 nominations), Sebastián Lelio...

A Moment In The Reeds

The full programme for this year's Scottish Queer International Film Festival was announced today, with Kenyan hit Rafiki and Finnish drama A Moment In The Reeds among the big name films scheduled. There will also be a focus on queer Arab lives, an East Asian focus and a night of queer Scottish short films.

The festival, which aims to celebrate the work of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer and intersex people as well as disabled people and people of colour, will be held in venues around Glasgow between 5 and 9 December. All venues offer good access for disabled people and tickets are charged on a sliding scale so attendees can pay what they can afford, with no proof of income needed.

Workshops and special events include a look at the art of making fun of oneself as an Lgbtq+ person, an exploration of what it's like to date.

There’s an admirable quiet intensity to “A Moment in the Reeds,” a first feature by London-based Mikko Mäkelä set in his native Finland. Superficially similar to “God’s Own Country,”. It’s sold to a few territories already while touring primarily gay fests.

Thin, blond Leevi (Janne Puustinen) has reluctantly returned home to help father Juoko (Mika Melender) fix up the family summer cottage before it’s put on the market. Though they’re doing their best to be civil, it’s a strained reunion: Leevi clearly still blames his taciturn dad for murky circumstances around his now-deceased mother’s departure long ago, while Juoko can find scant common ground with a gay son who’s run off to Paris to study literature.

Leevi isn’t the handy type, so his father has grudgingly hired a laborer through an agency to help with the renovation. To his intense annoyance and his son’s amusement,...