Berberian Sound Studio

Friday, June 12 - Saturday, June 13, 2026

“Berberian Sound Studio is an untrustworthy film. The first time I saw it, as the lights went down and Toby Jones drifted out of focus, I had the inkling I was in unsafe hands.

A more conventional filmmaker would have led me down the echoing halls of Berberian Film HQ alongside shy British sound engineer Gilderoy, into the sonically dead cave of studio 4 where volatile Italian director Giancarlo Santini’s latest, The Equestrian Vortex is on the job sheet for today. He would have enthralled me, confused me, teased, titillated and eventually terrified me but then taken me by my trembling hand and guided me out of the darkness, towards the daylight and back into the comfort of the familiar.

Strickland didn’t do that. Instead, whilst I was distracted by the tape spooling across the control room, the revolving reels on the projector, the dust in the light beam, the vegetables being thwacked on the foley bench, and just the sheer Giallo beauty of it all he had quietly slipped out of the room unnoticed.

I looked for him but he was gone. I was alone, and with no guide to show me the way it turns out that I’m still in there. The projector keeps running, the tape keeps spooling, the vegetables are still being thwacked and The Equestrian Vortex will never be finished.

 

Our apparent hero Gilderoy is no help. The logic of time has abandoned us both and that is where true horror lies. When are we? The edges of the frame have disappeared and yet the walls are closing in. I go to speak but someone else’s voice comes out. Who’s there? Mother?! Even the glimpses of pastoral southern England or the nostalgia laden echoes of Vaughan William’s Lark Ascending offer scant comfort. These fragments of home don’t temper the feelings of dread, or danger, or of doom. In fact their presence makes things worse. A reminder of how far from home we now are.

Of The Equestrian Vortex director Santini claims, “Nobody has seen this horror before.”

Until Berberian Sound Studio, I’d certainly never experienced this horror before.

Peter Strickland is a visionary; unique and essential.”

– film notes by Mark Jenkin, director of ROSE OF NEVADA, opening at IFC Center on June 19!

• Country UK
• Year 2012
• Running Time 94 minutes
• Format DCP
• Distributor IFC Entertainment Group
• Director Peter Strickland
• Cast Toby Jones, Antonio Mancino, Fatma Mohamed
• Accessibility Assistive Listening, T-Coil

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.