An unconventional production created Bertil Nilsson’s debut feature Masc, which has just premiered in Toronto’s Platform section and is next headed to BFI London Film Festival. He filmed across one year in blocks, shooting one scene a day, with a crew of just four: himself, a camera assistant, sound recordist and first AD to act as on-set producer.
“We wanted to spread out filming so I could do more,” he explains. “Location scouting, production design and all that stuff between those blocks. We had a good time making it, because we chose to make it in a comfortable way, and chose the right team with that in mind.”
Self-produced by Nilsson for his own company Duktiga, Masc follows Robin (Joshua Griffin, who has joint story credit), a young autistic man trying on different roles in life to understand what kind of man he is supposed to be. Nilsson, who is neurodivergent, wanted to replicate “the experience of, in every situation you’re in, conflicting things pulling on you — the act of performing in different ways”.
As a youngster, Sweden-born Nilsson saw films as “windows into social worlds that I wasn’t familiar with, letting me experience things I didn’t feel comfortable doing”. He moved to London in the early 2000s to work in production. “You’re not sitting in an office in front of a computer, you’re out trying to solve problems. I enjoy learning things my own way.”
After a taste of the industry as a runner on 2005’s Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, he has worked extensively as an artist with video and still images. Repair, his first fiction short, played at Clermont-Ferrand, BFI Flare and Outfest LA in 2023 before Disney+ and Canal+ streaming and broadcast buys.
“I want to create a sustainable way to make films my own way,” says Nilsson, citing renegades such as Werner Herzog as an inspiration. “I want those films to reach an audience, but it doesn’t have to be The Odyssey level of production.” While on a break from editing Masc, he wrote “a sweaty queer thriller set in Tenerife”, with a producer attached. “On the surface it will have a very different package,” says Nilsson. “There will be a lot of psychological and artistic choices.”
Contact: Duktiga
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