Exclusive: The Budding Gay Romance in the Film Of an Age

Taking place in the summer of 1999, Of an Age tells the story of a whirlwind romance between a young Serbian immigrant ballroom dancer and his dance partner’s — and best friend’s — older brother.

According to the film’s synopsis, the two men “begin to realize they have more in common than they first thought. Over the course of the next 24 hours, an unexpected and intense romance blossoms. A decade later the pair meet for a bittersweet reunion.”

Directed and written by You Won't Be Alone's Goran Stolevski, the film was partially inspired by Stolevski’s own upbringing around Melbourne, the setting of Of an Age.

“Like most adolescent delusions, mine holds a kernel of truth,” Stolevski said in a release. “[In] Melbourne, northern-suburb day-to-day living was indeed prosaic, mundane and insulated. But now — older and wiser by a couple of decades — I realize that scope doesn’t equal story-hopping across grand worlds and vistas. It means digging into a single compact human and excavating feelings the size of a universe. In writing Of an Age, I came to understand that my life growing up was cinematic, that the people I grew up with, the places I got stuck in and the feelings I got stuck with were in fact big-screen-sized.”

The out actor explained that while the film isn’t autobiographical it’s inspired by the people and places he grew up around.

“I make this joke all the time – my friends growing up were Katharine Hepburn and Ingmar Bergman,” he said. “I didn't have any in real life, and I was in this limbo state waiting for life to begin afterwards, once I was out of this space. When I completed the script, I realized, no, life was going on then and there. I felt like I had not missed out on it, but I wasn't present in it. So this film would be about being present in that moment so that I feel like I lived it to its fullest. I do believe art is what makes life important, so I think that's the motivation to capture some of it so it doesn't go away.”

Of an Age comes out in theaters on February 17.

Watch an exclusive clip of Stolevski’s Of an Age below.