Festival Predictions

2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Michael Pearce’s Echo Valley

Published on November 10, 2023

Although his breakthrough work was showcased in the Platform section at TIFF, the tension-filled whodunit Beast starring Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn actually managed to secure a place in the Sundance Spotlight section during the 2018 edition. Michael Pearce could return to Park City — a title we feel could fall somewhere in the autumn festival circuit. Production on his third feature film Echo Valley took place around the month of May in Pennsylvania with topliner trio of Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney and Domhnall Gleeson. A thriller genre type film based on a screenplay by Brad Ingelsby (The Way Back), Pearce re-teams with cinematographer Benjamin Kracun for a third time.

Gist: Kate Garretson (Moore) is dealing with a personal tragedy while owning and training horses in Echo Valley, an isolated and picturesque place. When her daughter Claire (Sweeney), arrives at her doorstep, frightened, trembling and covered in someone else’s blood. Gleeson plays the role of a local criminal who forces himself into Kate’s life, disrupting her quiet existence with secrets about her family.

Production Co./Producers: Scott Free’s Ridley Scott and Michael Pruss, The Walsh Company’s Brad Ingelsby and Kevin Walsh.

Prediction: Premieres.

U.S. Distributor: Apple TV+.

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).