by Dov Kornits
One of the first graduates of Australian Film, Television and Radio School’s Bachelor of Arts (Screen) courses, Sophie Hattch has hit a quinella with her first two feature films as producer both being selected to screen at the 2019 Sydney Film Festival.
The first is Imogen McCluskey’s coming of age in the suburbs drama Suburban Wildlife. The second is Samuel Van Grinsven’s queer coming of age thriller Sequin in a Blue Room.
“When I set out out to make this film I wanted to tell a queer coming-of-age story that truthfully reflected a modern day experience,” says Van Grinsven. “A digital coming of age. A world of online instant access and sexual discovery on demand. A world where vastly different experiences of being queer collide within one social app.”
Starring Conor Leach, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor and Anthony Brandon Wong, Sequin in a Blue Room follows a 16 year old boy named Sequin, who, after a chance encounter at an anonymous sex party, hunts through the world of a hook-up app to track down the mystery man.
“I found myself relating to Sequin’s struggles, his infatuation and obsession, his naivety and heartbreak,” says Hattch. “Considering how little I have in common with Sequin on a surface level, the fact that I felt such a deep affinity with him proved to me that this story would translate across ages, genders and sexual orientations.”
Sequin in a Blue Room is screening at the Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney on Sunday, February 16, 2020
