14 min,Fiction/documentary, 2017
Director/Cinematographer – Tova Mozard
Sounddesign/mix – Per-Henrik Mäenpää
Producer – Andreas Nordblom, Hjerta Nikki

COPS ARE ACTORS TEASER from Hjärta Nikki on Vimeo.

”Just another day downtown Los Angeles. Friday night it’s gonna be busy. I´m gonna have lots of calls, emergencies and non-emergencies. But yeah, just another night downtown Los Angeles with the LAPD, let’s do this.”

The film consists of a series of photographs and a video work, all including scenes of men in police uniforms doing their work, struggling both with the performance and the surrounding environment. The backdrop for the stage, the American mountainous landscape, offers a strange setting for the LAPD, Los Angeles Police Department. Stumbling around in a deserted park, the policemen seem lost and abandoned to nature.
Repetitively performed against a background of the city of dreams, the familiar one-liners closely associated with movies and TV-series gradually start to lose their content. Here, the concept of law and order seems unstable and not completely trustworthy. Are we witnessing a charade or true action – or both? Are the policemen for real or just pretending to offer safety and stability?
In Cops/Actors, Tova Mozard explores expressions and preconceptions of traditional authorities. As always in the works by Mozard, the line between fiction and reality is blurred, balancing between the familiar and the strange.
Tova Mozard (b 1978) holds an MFA from Malmö Art Academy and has also studied photography at University of California, Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions include Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, and Botkyrka konsthall , Stockholm. In addition, Mozard has exhibited at Scandinavia House, New York, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Norrköpings Art Museum, Malmö Art Museum, Artipelag, Stockholm, and Passagen Linköpings Konsthall. Her work is included in several public and private collections, e.g. Moderna Museet, Malmö Art Museum, Public Art Agency Sweden, Swedish Association for Art (SAK), Norrköpings Art Museum, Bonnier AB and Stockholm Art Council.
Mozard has participated in numerous screenings and film festivals, e.g. Gothenburg Film Festival (Repertoire, 2014), Borås Art Museum and Brussels Film Festival (2011), and Kassel Documentary Film & Video Festival (2007, 2006). Her video The Big Scene (2012) is included in the collection at Moderna Museet, and was nominated for The Guldbagge Award in the documentary film category in 2012.