Writers: Bertil Nilsson and Joshua Griffin
Director: Bertil Nilsson
Masc might just be the best British film of the year. Following a few months in the life of Robin, a queer autistic man, Masc is only partially concerned with masculinity. Its main focus, however, is on its homophone, explored in a series of workshops towards the last third of the film. Moving, funny and disorienting, Bertil Nilsson’s debut features a brilliant performance by Joshua Griffin as Robin.
Robin is at an interview. He’s nervous, stimming his legs under the table. He’s talking about paint and the colour black in particular. He’s rambling, suggesting it would be good to paint a black hole. A few set phrases of customer service spill out. The camera mirrors his confusion, showing only parts of his head: his hair, his shaking leg, a glimpse of his profile.
His interviewer is patient, but also a little patronising. “Eyes!” the interviewer exclaims when Robin has dropped his. It’s at this point we realise that the interview is a workshop for autistic people seeking work in public-facing jobs. Robin is pretending that he works at a DIY shop; the interviewer, a customer with questions. Robin’s ‘performance’ is judged by a panel of other participants, each of them offering different criticisms. One mentions his appearance, and finally the camera lets us see the whole of his face and his unruly mop of hair.
Robin is eager to learn the standards of communication that wider society has prescribed. Perhaps this is why he tape records people talking. He tapes the blind dancer he visits in the hospital where he works. The patient asks to feel Robin’s face. Always polite, Robin consents. But after feeling his hair, the blind man (a moving performance by Hi Ching) asks, “Are you Black? Are you white?” Robin pulls back as he answers no to both questions.
Later, Robin has shaved off his hair. In close-up, we see him lifting the shorn hair from the sink into a bin. We can only surmise that he’s cut off his locks because of the man’s questions. The varying length of Robin’s hair allows the viewer to chart time passing as Robin takes on different jobs: a lab technician and a builder’s apprentice. At the latter workplace, he becomes friendly with handsome Benji (Tega Alexander), and the sexual tension between them is palpable. But Masc is not a romcom by any means.
From meeting alpha males at the gym, going on a camping trip with his father, to working at the lab with non-binary Cam (Robbie Bellekom), Robin silently examines what it means to be a man. He feels his own pecs under his T-shirt as if wondering if gym-rat is the identity for him. However, the last part of the film turns everything on its head as another series of workshops is presented. The end is breathtaking in its originality, and Robin, or at least the actor who plays him, is able to exist in his own body, without the need to conform to societal expectations.
Nilsson and Griffin’s screenplay, along with some repeated scenes, ensures that the viewer has to work, but Masc yields riches in the process. Griffin’s winning performance as the gentle Robin leads the viewer to examine the rules governing social behaviour, and the pressure from society in general for autistic people to play by these rules.
Masc is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2026 from 7-18 October.
