Director and writer Mikko Makela’s Sebastian is what happens when chasing a dream unearths something inside of you that borders on liberation and shame.
Max, played by Ruaridh Mollica, is an aspiring novelist in London who feels like he is this close to getting a game-changing book deal. But his publisher, or what looks like it, wants him to succeed by any means. So if that means that he has to push himself, he’s going to do it. That leads him to start a double life where his nightlife is filled with moonlighting as a sex worker.
The more people he meets and gives himself to, the more he struggles to keep these two parts of himself separate. The more he also struggles with feelings of shame. Because he’s never explored these sensual parts of himself. And if there’s anything that society does is make you feel like you need to fit into a little box, follow the rules, and do as others do.
If Max wants to follow his own path, he’s going to have to face the consequences of what he’s done. But also accept who he has become.
Read the full synopsis below: 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. Finding himself more comfortable as Sebastian than expected, yet determined to keep his exploits a secret, Max increasingly struggles to remain in control of a delicately balanced double-life. As he confronts conflicting feelings of ecstasy, shame, and exhilarating liberation, Max has to reckon with whether Sebastian is merely a writer’s tool to achieve first-hand authenticity – or whether something more is at stake.
Watch the trailer for Sebastian below:
Sebastian is in select theaters in NY, LA, and San Francisco on August 2, 2024.
