13/11/2025 - Swedish visual artist Tova Mozard’s debut feature, about Russell Kingston, a Hollywood-based actor from the baby boomer generation, has been a 20-year work in progress

Entered in the documentary competition and given its domestic Swedish premiere at the 36th Stockholm International Film Festival, Tova Mozard’s debut feature, ILOVERUSS, has previously enjoyed well-received runs at CPH:DOX and the Transilvania International Film Festival. With her acclaimed background in visual arts and still photography, Mozard could be said to reside in the same camp as fellow countrywomen Mia Engberg and Anna Odell, visionary envelope-pushers within and beyond widely varied “hybrid” formats of cinema.

Mozard’s “documentary” on Russell Kingston, a Hollywood-based actor from the baby boomer generation, was ever so organically born of a chance run-in between the director and the main subject some 20 years ago, at which time shooting soon commenced. As a visiting UCLA scholar, Mozard participated in a film project as an extra and hit it off with another extra – a professional one.

Kingston – or “Russ”, to his friends, of which Mozard is the best – has surely nurtured grander plans, but in the meantime, which soon becomes every day, he’s found his lot in life, (un)seen in the background, at times behind major stars. Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino aside, he’s allegedly worked “with” practically everybody else in at least 600 titles. His IMDb page currently has 43 credits, not exactly “major” ones (Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus, anyone?), but that’s possibly because uncredited entries are declined as a rule.

He does have one leading part, all-encompassing at that. “I live in my imagination all the time. Even if I never do anything that becomes publicly known, I can still be acting all the time.” Which partly explains his monumentally unfurnished yet cluttered apartment. “I can walk past that stuff, and I’m not even thinking about or focusing on it – all I’m thinking about is something I’ve recently performed in or something that I’m preparing to perform in, or something I wish I was doing.”

Russ, a man(-child) with a conspicuously lonely existence, seems fine with solitude, as long as someone drops by for a chat from time to time. Mozard is that someone (the only one), a creative playmate visiting him over the years to hang out and shoot, with her being a non-passive on-screen co-star and off-screen commentator. Different ages of Russ are captured and lovingly, if not always chronologically, edited into a loose yet cohesive evolution from steadfast tin soldier of early middle age to haggard and occasionally distraught senior citizen, at times turning the director into caretaker and next of kin. It’s a work in progress playing out in real time, which is sometimes heartbreaking, but heartwarming, too, as well as quietly and moodily reflective.

It all unfolds in the most-photographed city in the world, as seen by a visual artist and still photographer with the full palette at her disposal, organically becoming her very own Edward Hopper, David Hockney, David Lynch, Robert Altman and the like in the process.

ILOVERUSS was produced by Sweden’s Picky Pictures.