Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #60. Michael Cristofer – The Night Clerk

Published on November 22, 2018

While we commonly associate Sundance with youngling breakout talents, young-at-heart Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, screenwriter (Bonfire of the Vanities) and actor (most recently Evil Corp CEO, Philip Price in Mr Robot) Michael Cristofer hadn’t made a feature since 2001’s Original Sin. Production on The Night Clerk took place in Utah this past February with a cast comprised of Tye Sheridan, Helen Hunt, Ana de Armas, John Leguizamo and Johnathon Schaech.

Gist: This is about a hotel night clerk, Bart Bromley (Tye Sheridan), a highly intelligent young man on the autism spectrum. When a woman is murdered during his shift, Bart becomes the prime suspect. As the police investigation closes in, Bart makes a personal connection with a beautiful guest named Andrea, but soon realizes he must stop the real murderer before she becomes the next victim.

Production Co./Producers: Arianne Fraser (Terminal), WulfPak Productions’ David Wulf (Little Women)

Prediction: Midnight section.

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).