Bêtes Sauvages
Bêtes Sauvages is the UK and Finland-based production outfit from Mikko Mäkelä and James Watson. Their award-winning debut feature A MOMENT IN THE REEDS was nominated at both the British Independent Film Awards and the Finnish Jussis, as was their second feature SEBASTIAN which premiered at Sundance in 2024.
Bêtes Sauvages was awarded a BFI Vision Award and in 2024 James Watson was named by Screen International as a Star of Tomorrow. Bêtes Sauvages is developing an array of projects across feature film, TV and documentary.
A Moment in the reeds
Feature film / 107min / Finland-UK, 2017
A MOMENT IN THE REEDS is an intimate drama about the chance encounter of two men by the Finnish lakeside. Leevi, who has left Finland behind to study abroad, returns for the summer to help his father renovate the family lake house. Tareq, a Syrian asylum seeker, has also been hired to help, and when Leevi’s father returns to town on business, the two young men give into their mutual attraction, spending a few midsummer days discovering one another. Among the first queer-themed feature films made in Finland, A Moment in the Reeds casts the long-marginalised voices of sexual and ethnic minorities centre-stage in a story about the search for freedom, acceptance and a place to call home.
BIFA and Jussi nominated debut feature from Mikko Mäkelä.
sebastian
Feature film / 111min / UK-Finland-Belgium, 2024
In this erotic literary drama, we follow Max, a 25-year-old freelance writer and aspiring novelist who seems well on his way to success in London’s cultural spheres. Yet by night, he finds a different kind of exhilaration as a sex worker with the pseudonym Sebastian, meeting men via an escorting platform. Max uses his experiences as Sebastian to fuel his stories and the worthy debut novel that he has been longing to write, finally seems within reach. As Max increasingly struggles to remain in control of a delicately balanced double-life, he must reckon with whether Sebastian is merely a writer’s tool in their quest for the ultimate sense of first-hand authenticity – or whether something more is at stake.
BAFTA,BIFA and Jussi nominated sophomore feature from Mikko Mäkelä.
World Premiered in Sundance 2024 in World Cinema Dramatic competition.
DUST
Feature film / 109 minutes / Belgium-UK-Poland-Greece.
At the end of the 1990s, the height of the Belgian tech boom, visionary founders Luc and Geert watch their empire collapse as news of their fraud breaks. With just one final day of freedom left, they part ways in search of redemption—from investors, family, and their community—only to discover what truly matters.
As UK co-producers, in co-production with A Private View, Heretic and Shipsboy.
Directed by Anke Blondé and written by Angelo Tijssens.
Dust will premiere in Main Competition at Berlinale 2026.