Mats Bjerknes

Film director Mats Bjerknes (born 1989) is from Flå in Hallingdal. He has a muscle disease (SMA type 3), but has never let that stop him. He has been politically active for large parts of his life, including as a board representative in Flå Municipality. He is driven by film and art’s potential to create change in society.

In 2017, he moved to Oslo to start a bachelor’s degree in Film & TV at Kristiania University College. In 2020, he was fully qualified as the country’s first fiction director with a muscle disease. The graduation film Aktlaus was shown at five international festivals.
In 2020, Mats started Film Art at OsloMet. This is where his interest in documentary began, and he made the self-examining and experimental short documentary Spinal, in the spring of 2021. This film was selected for the New Jersey Film Festival. Later in the year, he received NEO Idea development for the feature film Forza Oslo. In 2022, he made the short film “Dagen derpå”, which later in the year was selected for the Short Film Festival in Grimstad, and has been bought by Aftenposten. Mats spent the rest of the year making the documentary Brutte lenker on assignment for NHF, which premiered at Nordic Docs 2023.

Mats uses a lot of his own experiences in his work, where authenticity, honesty, closeness and tenderness are his trademarks. The style is often realism. Mats has a fascination for interpersonal relationships, brotherhood, toxic masculinity and system criticism.