Peter Strickland to Direct 'The Duke of Burgundy' for Rook Films

LONDON – Filmmaker Peter Strickland, fresh from picking up a quartet of British Independent Film awards, is to direct his third movie The Duke of Burgundy for Ben Wheatley’s production banner Rook Films.

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The movie will unite two of the U.K.'s current filmmakers du jour and marks the first movie Wheatley's production company to be made that has not been helmed by the filmmaker himself.

Strickland, director of Berberian Sound Studio and Katalin Varga, who picked up this year's best director BIFA nod for Berberian, will direct Burgundy, a film billed as a dark melodrama.

Chiara D’Anna (Berberian Sound Studio) is set to star as an amateur lepidopterist whose wayward desires test the limits of her lover's tolerance.

"After damaging my eardrums with too many screams during the Berberian sound mix, I wanted to make something tender and quiet, but also quite intense. It's a simple love story about a devoted couple whose intimate needs are rarely in harmony," said Strickland.

Rook Films' Andy Starke said the banner has a slate of projects with a group of writer directors "from around the world."

Starke described Berberian Sound Studio as "his favorite film of 2012" adding how it was "fantastic to be opening up with Peter’s new film. His unique take on genre cinema is a perfect match for Rook and we’re incredibly excited by this project."

The film is scheduled to shoot in 2013 and is currently being developed with the assistance of the British Film Institute's film fund, which also developed and backed Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio.

Rook’s slate of features includes Wheatley’s English Civil War project A Field In England as well as his cops versus Monsters sci-fi project Mega Evil Motherfuckers!

Sidharth Srinivasan’s Varanasi set Indian horror The Penance and the debut feature by director Jim Hosking tilted Whitaker is also slated.