Andreas Nilsson

Just the facts: Age – 36; Hometown – Malmö, Sweden; Education – Valand School of Fine Art in Gothenburg; Employ – In 2009, signed in the US with Furlined for commercials, Streetgang Films for videos and Blink for the UK.

Previous experience: A prolific music video director since 2006, when he directed “Heartbeats” for his friend Karin Dreijer Andersson’s band The Knife, Nilsson’s constantly shifting styles and theatrical sensibility has made him one of the genre’s most unpredictable talents. Highlights include the eerie “If I Had a Heart” for Fever Ray and Röyksopp’s “This Must Be It”.

Breakthrough work: With a flare for the cryptic, spastic and sometimes harrowing, it wasn’t until 2009 that Nilsson found a commercial to suit his electric eye: a cheeky, classic hip-hop video homage “Hyperize” for Nike via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland that cast four NBA players as god-like playa sorcerers. The video had it all: rapping, basketball, magical ice cream cones, extreme gymnastics and plenty of the mystical touches that Nilsson is known for.

G.O.A.T.: “I love Geto Boys,” he says. “A band with a suicidal dwarf is just so complex to me it’s mind-expanding. I think the album cover for We Can’t Be Stopped is the best album cover in the history of time. It has everything.”

Coming soon: Nilsson is working on an HP Lovecraft-inspired MGMT video, a short film and is adapting Ingmar Bergman’s gothic horror classic Hour of the Wolf for the stage. KR

www.furlined.com