'Duke Of Burgundy' Director Peter Strickland Helming 'In Fabric'

When we did our staff best-of-the-year poll back in 2015, it was not surprising that the runaway winner was “Mad Max: Fury Road,” given how universally that film was loved. But the result that we weren’t expecting at all was that the number three slot was taken, amidst fierce competition by films including “Carol,” “Ex Machina,” “Inside Out,” “Spotlight” and “Tangerine,” by Peter Strickland’s “The Duke Of Burgundy.”

It wasn’t that the film wasn’t great — the third feature by the “Berberian Sound Studio” helmer absolutely was great. But it was more that we were surprised that a very idiosyncratic, very European love story about the sub-dom relationship between two women, one of whom is a butterfly expert, and which ends up in some very trippy places, connected with so many of our staffers.

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But connect it did, and with cinephiles far and beyond our offices too. Since the film’s release over two years ago, not much has been heard from Strickland, but word arrived this morning via Screen Daily that he’s soon to start shooting on his fourth feature, which sounds direct.

Strickland’s set to begin lensing on “In Fabric,” next month, with Oscar-nominated “Secret & Lies” star Marianne Jean-Baptiste headlining. The film is set around a busy winter sales period in a department store and will follow the various owners of a cursed dress as it passes from person to person and destroys their lives.

It sounds like nothing else out there right now, which we’ve come to expect from Strickland and his brand of borderline-experimental, genre-inflected, audio-visual delights. It’s being backed again by Ben Wheatley’s Rook Films, along with the BFI and BBC Films, and with shooting underway by the end of October, expect it on the festival circuit next year.