Brit Peter Strickland is a European filmmaker par excellence and at the same time probably the most exciting solitary figure in contemporary arthouse. With five feature films and numerous short films, Strickland has created a unique cinematic cosmos in which aspiration and trash, art and genre do not form opposites. The refined stylist describes a London cinema as his "film school". His own viewing and listening experiences - "New York underground, sleazy European art porn, creepy Italian horror mixed in with Fassbinder, Cocteau, Jarman, Bunuel, Tarkovsky" - as well as the most diverse human obsessions are transformed by Strickland into multi-layered, relational film art, which he personally presents at BIFF.