| Director: | Mikko Mäkelä |
| Producer: | James Robert Benjamin Watson |
| Music: | Ilari Heinilä |
| Cinematography: | Iikka Salminen |
| Editing: | Arttu Salmi |
| Distributor: | LevelK |
| Released: | [1] |
| Runtime: | 110 minutes |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $65,636[2] [3] |
Sebastian is a 2024 international co-production film written and directed by Mikko Mäkelä.
Max, an aspiring young writer in London, begins living a double life as a sex worker in order to research his debut novel.
Written and directed by Mäkelä as his second feature, Sebastian was produced by James Watson for their joint company Bêtes Sauvages, co-produced by Helsinki-filmi and Lemming Film België, and executive produced by Ciara Barry and Rosie Crerar of barry crerar.[4] The film was supported by the BFI and Screen Scotland, as well as the Finnish Film Foundation, Finnish Impact Film Fund, Great Point Media, BNP Paribas Film Finance, and the Belgian Tax Shelter.
Principal photography took place in London, Glasgow, and Brussels, with post-production in London, Antwerp and Helsinki.[5]
In December 2023, it was revealed the film would premiere in January at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. LevelK acquired the international rights to the film ahead of its Sundance premiere.[6] In February 2024, it was announced that the film had been acquired by Kino Lorber for North America, with a theatrical release to be announced.[7]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 72% based on 46 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Mollica compels as a young man caught between two lives and his performance elevates Sebastian, a provocative if uneven story that explores an artist's quest to find inspiration and authenticity in the name of art."[8] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 53 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[9]