Sequin in a Blue Room (2019)

Interesting facts

Sequin in a Blue Room is a 2019 Australian independent queer coming-of-age, mystery and drama film directed by Samuel Van Grinsven, in his feature film debut. It was written by Van Grinsven and Jory Anast. The film stars Conor Leach in his feature film debut, Simon Croker, Anthony Brandon Wong and Jeremy Lindsay Taylor. It had its world premiere on 14 June 2019 at the Sydney Film Festival, where it won an award for Best Narrative Feature, and was released in theatres in August 2020. The film received generally wide acclaim, and American review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes certified the film fresh with a score of 92%. It was filmed on location in Sydney.

Production notes

In an interview with The Queer Review, Van Grinsven said that many of the storylines in the film were directly based on his own coming-of-age experiences, and his film was also influenced by New Queer Cinema, and the early works of Gregg Araki and Gus Van Sant. He also revealed that the movie was his graduate work from Australian Film, Television and Radio School, so it was filmed on a meager budget of only $45,000.

Van Grinsven disclosed that Conor Leach was cast in the role of Sequin in a very unconventional way. Having no track record at filmmaking, a lot of agents and actors were reluctant to work with him. Leach had no prior film experience, but his agent sent Van Grinsven an email about Conor anyway, and he asked for an audition tape.

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