Growing up in a small Finnish town close to the Russian border, Mikko Mäkelä knew he was gay from the age of 11. “I think I was happy until then,” says the shy 36-year-old, whose slippery second film Sebastian is about to be released. Isolated he may have been, but at least the young Mäkelä had movies. Alone in his room, he watched queer gems such as Mysterious Skin, Presque Rien and Beautiful Thing, keeping the volume low in case his parents heard. Then a trip to the cinema to see Brokeback Mountain changed everything.
“When I got home, they asked me, ‘Did you like that film?’ They had read about it and wanted to make sure I wasn’t like the characters. That was the night I ended up coming out to them.” He didn’t stay in Finland much longer, moving to Nottingham to attend university. “My home town felt extremely homophobic, which was a big part of why I left. I told myself that when I stepped off the plane in the UK, I’d stop lying.”
