The Orwellians

**The Orwellians** is a 2021 film directed, written, and starring Nicolas Sequeira. It was released on April 20, 2021 as part of the Nicolas Films 4/20 Fest, and was initially announced September 2020. The film deals with themes of alienation, propaganda, and false memories. Sequeira plays all 4 main characters, George Orwell, Ayn Rand, Richard Nixon, and Johnny Spooky, as well as the supporting characters.

## Synopsis

Nicolas plays a fictional version of himself who finds a filmed archive of a long-forgotten Orwellian commune in an old shed. This filmed archive includes interviews with the participants, who relate their experiences in a candid fashion to the viewer.

In 1960, in an alternate history where George Orwell lives 10 years longer than he did in reality, Ayn Rand is brought in by Orwell to help conceptualize a self-contained greenhouse commune. This commune is intended to offset the Liberal ideas taking hold at the time. Orwell and Rand are joined by young politician Richard Nixon and budding tech programmer Johnny Spooky. Within the commune, these four visionaries create elaborate narratives to cope with the isolation and channel their thoughts. These stories are represented in the film by 4 short segments:

* **Atlas Shrugged**: Dagny Taggart, represented visually by a pan, sunglasses, and a shirt stuffed with newspaper, teams up with another shirt named Hank Reardon to defeat Communist infiltration and discover the mythical locale of Galt's Gulch before their mortality catches up with them.
* **The Tale Of The Softwares**: A Cellphone, a DVD, and a dinosaur remind you that they can ruin your life at any moment.
* **Hotel Escapades**: Humorous recreation of the Watergate scandal filmed with some of the same techniques as Viyce. G. Gordon Liddy, John Mitchell, John Dean, and Jeb Magruder star in this poignant and dramatic reinterpretation of the events of June 17, 1972.
* **1984 The Deluxe Edition**: Nicolas Sequeira stars as Winston Smith, O'Brien, and Julia in this tour-de-force finale. This segment recounts the events of the novel 1984 with significant embellishments, which are presented as part of an unpublished "deluxe" edition of 1984.

Clips presented between these 4 segments gradually reveal what went on within the commune. Two illustrated portions, :The Hipster Incident" and "Filth Sermon #87," reveal Orwell's toxic and borderline psychotic behavior. Johnny Spooky was exiled from the commune first due to his centrist views, after which the commune was shut down by Orwell and Rand. The film ends with Nicolas claiming he "made the whole story up."

## Development

The film was in part based on an unfinished comic Nicolas began in 2019, entitled "George Orwell and Ayn Rand: Time Travelers." The comic, which would have involved Orwell and Rand visiting a number of critical points in history and ruining them with their Libertarian principles, was ultimately scrapped. The comic would have featured less romance and a more platonic bond between the two leads.

In September 2020 Nicolas announced the creation of a new film, "The Orwellians." While the basic premise was given from the start, information on the project leaked slowly until it was announced in March 2021 that the film would be released on April 20, 2021 alongside two of Sequeira's other hotly anticipated projects, "Rules For Thee But Not For Me" and "Rubbish Randy: Crying Behind The Noodles." Photography was conducted between August 2020 and April 2021, making it Sequeira's longest-running film project to date.

To create the claustrophobic environment of the Orwellian commune, Sequeira used unorthodox practical effects and lighting. The commune itself was visually represented by a small 2 foot by 3 foot greenhouse in Sequeira's backyard, while plastic bags and vacuum hoses were used in other scenes, to represent Orwell's anal-retentive obsession with sanitary practices and a robotic service snake respectfully. The scenes of the greenhouse at night feature Sequeira's View-Master projector and a spinning pinwheel, which give them an uncanny and desolate feeling. Nicolas' pet chicken, Blackie, also makes a cameo appearance.

## Music

The music for the film was pulled from a wide variety of archival sources. The main theme for the film is a track called "Pickup Lounge: Street Funk." Other songs featured in the film are "Put Away A Little Ray Of Golden Sunshine" by George Olsen, to counteract Orwell's defeatist attitude. 2 versions of the Tin Pan Alley staple 'Wait 'Till The Sun Shines, Nellie," one traditional version performed by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, and a more upbeat jazzy version performed by Bob Chester and his Orchestra (both, again, to be juxtaposed with Orwell's pessimism.)

The film's most recognizable song, "She Won't Have Me," is a nostalgic tune by the enigmatic New Jersey band The Lost Sound, recorded in the 1960s and put onto a compilation album titled "It's Happening Here...!" The song appeared uncut in the film's trailer and was remixed with reverb and echo during the scene where Sequeira rediscovers the Orwellian commune in the modern day. Sequeira himself provided the twangy guitar for the "Filth Sermon #87" segment.

## Aesthetic

The film's aesthetic draws heavily from the pop art and psychedelic styles of the 1960s, in particular taking inspiration from the title sequences of Saul Bass on such films as "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Man With The Golden Arm." These well-defined features with a modern sensibility are reflected in the film's primary fonts, Times New Roman and Century Gothic, as well as the rectangles that appear during the introduction.

This aesthetic carries over to the film's corresponding music video "Livin' On Airstrip One."

The primary colors of the film, black, white, and yellow, are reflected by the clips used, which are roughly 2/3 black and white and 1/3 in color. The film uses an amateur "found footage" approach, splicing together clips from the 1950s informational film "They Call It All-States" and even a Howard Johnson's advertisement from the 1960s during the "Hotel Escapades" segment. This footage is cleverly mixed with original footage.

## Release

On September 8, 2021, The Orwellians was released on VHS as part of a double feature with Viyce on Sequeira's home video company, Nicolas Home Video.