The writing/directing team of Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal, in Karlovy Vary with the international premiere of their award-winning feature Stranger Things, are already writing the script for their next feature together.

The next film will open with a woman standing at her estranged father’s doorstop. As of now (the script is still in development), it will be set in London.

“It’s another feature in a similar vein tonally to Stranger Things, it’s an intimate story on a human scale,” Burke told Screen. “As with Stranger Things, we’re interested in the fact that there are so many doors between people that are kept shut.”\

Before shooting that (likely in 2012), the pair will make a short film which Burke said is “another intimate look at a relationship, with post-9/11 themes.” That will shoot late summer or autumn in New York City, reteaming them with Stranger Things actor Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions).

The New York City-based husband and wife team met at NYU’s Graduate Film School — he is originally from California, she is from London; they started collaborating on shorts at NYU and some footage shot for Stranger Things comprised their thesis project.

Stranger Things, about a fragile woman (Bridget Collins) who meets a homeless man, premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival where it won the grand jury prize, and it then went on to win the grand jury prize at Slamdance in January [the pair also had a short, Ruth & Maggie, at Slamdance in 2006.]

Burke and Eyal say they hope to work across the US and Europe. Stranger Things was made in a DIY attitude, but shot in the Sussex coast in the UK.

Burke said: “In the same way that Lynne Ramsay made a British style film in the US [We Need To Talk About Kevin], we’ve done a US-style production in the UK. There are a lot of benefits for doing it that way, there’s a different mentality of filmmakers in the two countries. We’re experienced with the ways of production in the New York independent film scene, but our sensibilities are quite European.”

An international crew worked on the 30-day shoot for Stranger Things, which has a final budget of less than $1m. The film was privately financed and also got grant funding. It was also awarded the IFP Lab’s finishing fund award.

Eyal and Burke plan to co-direct again on these upcoming projects. Eyal said: “It feels really effortless and organic. We always bounce ideas off each other.”

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