Festival Predictions

2018 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Peter Brunner’s To the Night

Published on November 17, 2017

For his fifth feature and English language debut, Austrian helmer Peter Brunner moves into gritty, street-fashioned shoot in NYC. Working with a pair of Safdie Bros.’ figures in the under-appreciated Caleb Landry Jones and Eleonore Hendricks, To the Night is rounded out by Jana McKinnon and Christos Haas (both appear in the filmmaker’s last two films in 2013’s Mein blindes Herz and 2015’s Those Who Fall Have Wings) and sees Brunner team with Sidney Hall cinematographer Daniel Katz.

Gist: Norman, the sole survivor of a tragic fire accident when he was just a child, has been struggling with a lingering feeling of guilt all his life. Together with his girlfriend Penelope and his baby son, Norman tries to forge a new life. Norman’s memory is reignited one night and he sets off on an unparalleled quest, following a trail of flames whose powers shall now heal him.

Production Co./Producers: Oliver Neumann, Sabine Moser, Loveless‘ Carly Hugo and Matthew Parker (Five Nights in Maine), Klara von Veegh.

Prediction: World Cinema Dramatic Competition with interest coming from Euro fests such as Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary and Locarno.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. TBD (domestic). TBD (international)

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).