DUKE OF BURGUNDY, The

"Peter Strickland's wryly subversive S&M fantasy is everything that Fifty Shades of Grey isn't … a wondrously bizarre affair, beautiful and baffling by turns." – The Independent

Originating as a tribute to 1970s Spanish sexploitation filmmaker Jesús Franco, the third film from wonderfully unique British director Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, MIFF 2012; Katalin Varga, MIFF 2009) ends up somewhere else entirely: an ethereal, fairytale world of women only, butterflies and human toilets!

Sidse Babett Knudsen (from cult Danish TV series Borgen) is mesmerising as Cynthia, a lepidopterist and dominatrix to Chiara D'Anna's equally impressive Evelyn. But all is not what it seems in this chimerical romance. Drawing on Buñuel and Bergman (among many others), and aided by an eerie psych-pop soundtrack courtesy of UK duo Cat's Eyes, The Duke of Burgundy is a theatrical, darkly humorous and thought-provoking study of power, compromise and enduring love.

"At its core, this is one of the most incisive, penetrating, and empathetic films ever made about what it truly means to love another person, audaciously disguised as salacious midnight-movie fare. No better picture is likely to surface all year." – The AV Club