At the London Film Festival, writer-director Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, In Fabric, The Duke of Burgundy) presented his new film, Flux Gourmet, followed by a Q and A after the screening. This eccentric film isn’t for everyone, and is, indeed, an acquired taste.

It could best be described as a surreal, often hilarious and somewhat grotesque story about a ‘culinary collective’ of avant-garde artists who cook/perform at an establishment called The Sonic Catering Institute, for the purpose of eliciting sounds from various foods. Behind the scenes, the film deals with ongoing power struggles between the artists and the director of the Institute.

The film is centered on three highly pretentious performers: Elle di Elle (Fatma Mohamed), Billy (Asa Butterfield), and Lamina (Ariane Labed). The Institute is run by a take-no-prisoners Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie) whose over-the-top outfits are equal only to her delicious gems of pseudo-intellectual dialogue about ‘inter-culinary disciplines,’ which she spouts effortlessly and with conviction. The film is narrated by journalist Mark Papadimitriou, who is intensely fascinated by his subjects while struggling with an unfortunate and unpredictable digestive system.

The British writer-director talks about the origin story of the film. “Well, someone asked me to write a very low-budget film for under a million. There was money. I was told to ‘do whatever I want and I’ll get the money.’ So I wrote this.” He shrugs. “And I didn’t get the money.”

Loosely based on his own band, The Sonic Catering Band, a trio of musicians who would record and perform the sounds of cooking and preparing food, could Flux Gourmet be considered a vanity project? “Well, I liked the idea that these kinds of films are reserved for epic bands like Queen or Elton John. So I thought, ‘What is the most egotistical thing I can do?’ And that was to make a film about a band that nobody’s heard of,’” he says. “So, yeah, I was into that idea of embracing the ego.”

Apparently, it wasn’t difficult to get permission from the others in the band. “I called the other two members up and said, ‘Do you mind if I write a film loosely based on us? It’s not going to be very complimentary.’ They were fine about it. And then because we were dealing with food, one thing led to another and that’s how the film came about.”

Evidently, one of the ‘things’ it led to was an orgy. How autobiographical was that scene? “Whatever I say seems to sound like I’m bragging. Well, I’m not bragging because, well, there’s nothing to brag about, to be honest. I don’t want to get into that — it’s tricky because obviously, I’d be incriminating other people.” He pauses. “Don’t believe everything you see. That’s all I will say.”

Strickland talks about one of his cinematic inspirations, “The Decline of Western Civilization Part 69: The Porno Years,” by Penelope Spheeris (Wayne’s World), a parody of The Decline of Western Civilization. “It was one of the best films made about men and the stereotype of having an orgy.”

Speaking of which, how did Fatma feel about performing in the scene? “When I spoke to her about this, it was a bit like [the subject of] drugs. It’s like good for your CV, [yet] it’s not something you particularly enjoy doing, but it’s great for everyone to know you did it — as in, for the character in that world.”

The film was shot in an astounding 14 days, leaving no room for improvisation. “I tended to leave the mistakes in the film. So when Fatma (a Romanian-born actress who appears in all his films) would make mistakes in her English, like she’d say ‘white dreams’ instead of ‘wet dreams,’ it just seemed more poetic. Also, we had to leave a whole character out,” he explains. “It was very, very heartbreaking but that’s just the way it was.” He pauses. “But we did have rehearsal time. We had about a week or a bit less.”

Given the conditions, not to mention the budget or lack thereof, he put together an impressive cast while pulling off a real coup to secure the likes of Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie. All this clearly speaks volumes about Strickland’s talent to land actors of that caliber. “Maybe there’s no other work for them — I don’t know, you’d have to ask them.” He deadpans. “And then again, they might change their minds [about me] after this film. We’ll see.”