Flux Gourmet

In Flux Gourmet, Peter Strickland mixes sonic experiments, performance art, cooking, and food into a grotesquely delicious chaos of a film.

On a remote country estate, Jan Stevens (played by Gwendolyn Christie, known from Game of Thrones) runs a residency programme for selected artists who use sounds from food preparation and cooking to create experimental performance art. Elle di Elle and her two technicians Billy and Lamina, who together form an art collective, are chosen to stay at the estate and work on their art. As creative differences between Elle and Jan arise, the relationships between all residents are becoming more and more dysfunctional. Our entrance point into this strange world is Stones, a retired Greek journalist suffering from indigestion who is there to document the artists’ activities.

Strickland is staying true to his style which he already has established through previous films like The Duke of Burgundy. He explores the sensual and the erotic, somewhere between good and bad taste - here quite literally - and draws inspiration from horror and erotic films of the 1970’s. And like a reflux, the subtle yet constant comedic undertone of the film keeps on bubbling up.

Director

Peter Strickland’s first feature film Katalin Varga was released in 2009, before he had already directed several short films. What followed was Berberian Sound Studio (2012), The Duke of Burgundy (2015) and In Fabric (2018). All his films were critical successes and have been shown at renowned festivals all over the world. During his career, Strickland has developed a unique film style with an incredible attention to detail - on his sets we can find even people responsible for the smells. He is taking a lot of inspiration from European film of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Apart from his fiction films, he has also directed a concert film for avantgarde artist Björk and several radio plays.

This film is part of