Andy Blubaugh’s movie 'The Adults in the Room' is a deeply personal project for him. As a high school teenager he embarked on an illicit affair with a seductive man twice his age and now at 30-years-old himself, Andy has decided to examine the past with an adult perspective.
In 1995, Andy Blubaugh—then a curious and lonely fifteen-year-old—began a sexual relationship with Peter, a successful, deeply closeted man who was nearly twice his age. In 2010, Andy now a filmmaker and teacher, revisited this complex relationship in a hybrid documentary film and how it informed his own sense of boundaries with his teenage students.
The film combines re-enactments of their troubled romance through the recollections of a now wiser Andy and interviews with relationship columnist Dan Savage, educators and social workers to explore this thorny issue of adolescent sexuality and the relationships that make us who we are. To help reflect the tension between the narrative and documentary portions the flashback scenes were shot on super-16 film stock while the modern day reflections on these events were shot on HD video.
The Adults In The Room, is Andy Blubaugh’s first feature film. His shorts Scaredycat, Hello Thanks screened at the Sundance film festival.
The Adults In The Room was selected for presentation at IFP’s Independent Film Week 2008, and is the recipient of grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the Oregon Arts Commission. Production was completed in the Fall of 2009 and will be screening at festivals
