The Berberian Sound Studio
2011, 100 minutes
A hauntological horror
Berberian Sound Studio stars award-winning actor Toby Jones (Infamous, Frost/Nixon, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets) in the lead role. An Illuminations Films and Warp X production, the film will be produced by Keith Griffiths (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Little Otik, Institute Benjamenta) and Mary Burke (Submarine, Bunny And The Bull). Nic Knowland BSC (Barbarians At The Gate) is the cinematographer and editor is Academy Award winner Chris Dickens (Slumdog Millionaire). Broadcast will score the music for the film. 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 (Toby Jones), a shy and nondescript sound engineer from the UK is hired to mix the latest giallo film by horror maestro, Santini (Antonio Mancino) and he soon finds himself caught up in a forbidding world of bitter actors, capricious foley artists 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 Dorking. His mother's letters alternate between banal gossip and an ominous hysteria, which gradually mirrors the black magic of the Santini film that Gilderoy is responsible for orchestrating. As both time and realities shift, Gilderoy finds himself lost in an otherworldly spiral of sonic and personal mayhem. Berberian Sound Studio was developed by Illuminations Films with Lizzie Francke at the UK Film Council and Film4 and will be the ninth film to shoot from Warp X's production slate, with the support of the UK Film Council, Film4, Screen Yorkshire and Geissendoerfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion KG in association with Madman Entertainment. The film will be co-produced by veteran German producer/director Hans Geissendoerfer and will be executive produced by Film4's Katherine Butler, Warp's Robin Gutch and Screen Yorkshire's Hugo Heppell. The Match Factory is handling international sales.
