Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala The Devil's Bath

Festival Predictions

2024 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala’s The Devil’s Bath

Published on November 9, 2023

It’s entirely possible that Austrian filmmakers Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala would have waited it out for another Park City showing – Sundance launched the tandem’s third feature The Lodge back in 2019. Following their docu debut Kern (2012) and Goodnight Mommy (2014), The Devil’s Bath (aka Des Teufels Bad) went into production in January of last year — so this has been in post for a chunk of time. This film based on women, religion and ritual murders this is based on an unknown chapter of European history and stars Birgit Minichmayr, Maria Hofstätter, David Scheid, Camilla Schielin and Anja Plaschg.

Gist: 18th century Austria. Villages surrounded by deep forests. A woman is sentenced to death after killing a baby. Agnes is marrying her loved one and candidly prepares herself for a spouse life. Soon after, her head and heart start to feel heavy. Day after day, she is increasingly trapped in a murky and lonely path leading to evil thoughts. Maybe not just thoughts.

Production Co./Producers: Ulrich Seidl.

Prediction: Midnight.

Sales: Playtime.

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).