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Laurence Anyways, the third film from Xavier Dolan (I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats), is welcoming two-time Oscar nominated director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk) as an Executive Producer alongside producers Lyse Lafontaine, Nathanaël Karmitz and Charles Gillibert.

“As an admirer of Xavier’s work, it’s my pleasure to join him for his first major US release, Laurence Anyways,” says Van Sant. “It’s a beautiful film that proves Xavier is one of the most promising young filmmakers working today.”

“Obviously, it’s a huge privilege to be considered by an artist like Gus,” Dolan said. “One of the first encounters I had with a more sophisticated cinema was ‘My Own Private Idaho.’ It was the first time I had a sense of what cinema could be or should be made of: Freedom, honesty and intimacy. For me to be endorsed by Gus Van Sant is like telling an 8-year old that Batman is his uncle.”

Peter Strickland, director of the acclaimed feature films Berberian Sound Studio & Katalin Varga and winner of this years Best Director BIFA award, will shoot his third feature. Berberian was the most successful film at this years BIFA awards picking up three further gongs including Best Actor for star Toby Jones.

The Duke of Burgundy, a dark melodrama, is set to star Chiara D’Anna (Berberian Sound Studio) 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” says Strickland.

The film will shoot in 2013 and is currently being developed with the assistance of the BFI Film Fund, which also developed and backed Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio.

YES!

The Horror Channel showcases three of David Cronenberg’s most defining films with a season that can’t fail to shock and awaken the senses. Shivers, Rabid and The Dead Zone all receive their Horror Channel premieres, exclusively introduced by top horror directors Simon Rumley (Red White & Blue), Sean Hogan (The Devil’s Playground) and Pascal Laugier (Martyrs).

The season kicks off with the premiere of Shivers (1975), Cronenberg’’s debut full-length feature that helped coined the phrase ‘Body Horror’. The infectious plot sees a parasite enter the bodies of people living in a Montreal apartment block and consequently turns them into libido driven, sex mad zombies. Clearly a fan of the genre, Cronenberg cast the unforgettable Hammer Horror siren Barbara Steele in what was to become one of the most iconic scenes in the film.

Next up is the premiere of Rabid (1977) in which Cronenberg is once again flirting with the themes of strange science and even stranger sex in this blood-lusty follow up to Shivers. This time a young woman becomes a test subject for an experimental skin graft when she survives a horrific motorbike crash – but her new skin demands feeding. …Starring Marilyn Chambers, this is Cronenberg’’s twisted take on the Vampire genre.

Last in the season is The Dead Zone (1983), in which Cronenberg teamed up with Stephen King when he adapted his novel. Filmed during a relentless deep freeze in Southern Ontario, this horror thriller stars Christopher Walken. As Johnny Smith – a man who wakes from a coma to find he’’s lost five years of his life but gained psychic powers to foresee the future –something of a gift that soon becomes a curse.

Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio picked up the most wins at the 2012 British Independent Film Awards on Sunday 9th December.

The film won four Moët British Independent Film Awards in the following categories:

Best Director – Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio) – WINNER

Best Actor – Toby Jones (Berberian Sound Studio) – WINNER

Best Achievement in Production – Berberian Sound Studio – WINNER

Best Technical Achievement – Joakim Sundström, Stevie Haywood AMPS IPS – Sound Design (Berberian Sound Studio) – WINNER

Commenting on the wins Philip Knatchbull, CEO of Curzon Artificial Eye said, “Artificial Eye are delighted that Berberian Sound Studio has been honoured with four awards at this year’s British Independent Film Awards and are proud to continue supporting outstanding British film talent”

Winner of the Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor awards at the 2012 Film 4 Frightfest, Peter Strickland’s disturbing, eerie chiller is a must-see for fans of the work of Dario Argento, Roman Polanski and David Lynch and features a revelatory central performance by Toby Jones and a superb soundtrack by British indie electronic band, Broadcast.

Berberian Sound Studio is release on DVD & Blu-Ray and VOD 31 Dec 2012 and is available now on Curzon on Demand.

The soundtrack to Berberian Sound Studio, composed by renowned Warp-signed band Broadcast (aka Trish Keenan and James Cargill) is released a week later, on Jan 7th 2013. Time Out said of the film that the “stylistically ambitious, morally radical, thematically complex work…deserves the highest praise”. This turns out to also be an apt description of the film’s sublime soundtrack.

Initially conceived as the soundtrack to The Equestrian Vortex, the film-within-a-film (watch opening credits here) around which Berberian Sound Studio unfolds, it would eventually spill outwards to encapsulate the entire world Strickland had created and populated with eccentric, magnetic characters. On it’s own, the music sets a sinister and atmospheric tone that still exists well within Broadcast’s sonic universe.