Berberian Sound Studio

Berberian Sound Studio

1976: Berberian Sound Studio is one of the cheapest, sleaziest post-production studios in Italy. Only the most sordid horror films have their sound processed and sharpened in this studio. Gilderoy, a naive and introverted sound engineer from England is hired to orchestrate the sound mix for the latest film by horror maestro, Santini. Thrown from the innocent world of local documentaries into a foreign environment fuelled by exploitation, Gilderoy soon finds himself caught up in a forbidding world of bitter actresses, capricious technicians and confounding bureaucracy. The longer Gilderoy spends mixing screams and the bloodcurdling sounds of hacked vegetables, the more homesick he becomes for his garden shed studio in his hometown of Dorking. His mother’s letters alternate between banal gossip and an ominous hysteria, which gradually mirrors the black magic of Santini’s film. As both time and realities shift, Gilderoy finds himself lost in an otherworldly spiral of sonic and personal mayhem, and has to confront his own demons in order to stay afloat in an environment ruled by exploitation both on and off screen.

Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.


Direction: Peter Strickland
Script: Peter Strickland
Cinematography: Nic Knowland
Editing: Chris Dickens
Sound: Joakim Sundström, Steve Haywood
Music: Broadcast
Actors: Toby Jones, Cosimo Fusco, Fatma Mohamed, Eugenia Caruso, Antonio Mancino, Tonia Sotiropoulou, Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, Katalin Ladik
Production: Channel Four Television, UK Film Council, Illuminations Film Limited, Warp X Limited
Producers: Keith Griffiths, Mary Burke
Co-production: Geißendörfer Film und Fernsehproduktion
Co-producers: Hans W. Geißendörfer
Costumes: Julian Day
Production Design: Jennifer Kernke
Executive producer: Robin Gutch, Hugo Heppell, Katherine Butler, Michael Weber
Make Up: Karen Hartley Thomas
Format: DCP
Color: Color
Production Country: UK
Production Year: 2012
Duration: 94΄
Contact: The Match Factory
Awards/Distinctions: Junior Jury Award (International Competition) – Locarno IFF 2012, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Achievement in Production, Best Technical Achievement – British Independent Film Awards 2012, José Luis Guarner Critic's Award (Special Mention) – Sitges IFF 2012, ALFS Award (British Film of the Year, British Actor of the Year) – London Critics Circle Film Awards 2013

Peter Strickland

British director Peter Strickland was born in 1973 and began directing short films in the early 1990s. After a long hiatus from filmmaking during which he created culinary soundscapes with The Sonic Catering Band, he returned to film in the early 2000s and made his first feature, Katalin Varga, in 2009. Alongside further short and feature films, he has also written radio plays and has made a concert film for Björk, which he co-directed with Nick Fenton.

Filmography

2004 A Metaphysical Education (short)
2005 Berberian Sound Studio (short)
2009 Katalin Varga
2012 Berberian Sound Studio
2014 The Duke of Burgundy
2017 Cobblers’ Lot (short)
2018 In Fabric
2019 GUO4 (short)
2020 Cold Meridian (short)
2022 Blank Narcissus (Passion of the Swamp) (short)
2022 Flux Gourmet