Festival Predictions

2019 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: #51. Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala’s The Lodge

Published on November 22, 2018

They broke out big when Venice, TIFF and Sitges handed them invites for their 2014 horror film Goodnight Mommy (read review) and Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s part in The Field Guide to Evil was a buffer in between features. A fairly secretive first English-language type of project, The Lodge went into production this past January with the likes of Richard Armitage, Katelyn Wells, and Riley Keough.

Gist: Written by Franz, Fiala, Sergio Casci, this is about young woman and her new stepchildren who are menaced by a terrifying supernatural force while spending Christmas in their remote cabin.

Production Co./Producers: Hammer Films’ Simon Oakes and Marc Schipper (The Quiet Ones).

Prediction: Midnight section. SXSW will want to program this one as well.

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. WME Global/FilmNation (domestic). FilmNation (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).