Mikko Mäkelä

Mikko Mäkelä is a Finnish gay filmmaker, raised in eastern Finland, who moved to England at 18 to study English literature and French at the University of Nottingham and UCL, and drama at the City Literary Institute, before beginning his career as a film editor. He is known for A Moment in the Reeds (2017), a low-budget debut feature about a Finnish man who returns home and has an intense affair with a Syrian refugee staying at his family's summer cottage, which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and screened at nearly a hundred festivals worldwide. His sophomore feature, Sebastian (2024), premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance and received nine nominations at Finland's Jussi Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Mäkelä was named one of IndieWire's 25 LGBTQ filmmakers on the rise, and has spoken about the importance of representing gay men's inner lives with the same seriousness and interiority that literary fiction affords.