EXCLUSIVE: FirstGen, a production company with credits including Mona Fastvold’s recent Searchlight flick The Testament of Ann Lee, is developing a feature adaptation of the novel The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg.

Michelle Garza Cervera has boarded to direct, with Isa Mazzei set to adapt the screenplay.

Published in 2018, The Third Hotel follows Clare, a recent widow who travels to Latin America weeks after her husband Richard’s mysterious death, driven by the need to understand her role in his early passing. Lost in a new, unfamiliar city, she spots a man in the street, and it’s not just someone who looks like Richard, it’s him in the flesh. What begins as a skeptical pursuit of Richard’s double quickly devolves into an all-consuming obsession, unraveling Clare’s grip on reality and pulling her into a liminal nightmare where she is suspended between the living and the dead.

A psychological horror and a mystery baked into one, the novel was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and received critical praise from the likes of Time, The New Yorker, NPR and The New York Times Book Review.

In a statement on the project, director Cervera said, “I’m so thrilled to work on an adaptation of such an eerie and brilliant novel alongside Isa Mazzei, whose work I’m a real fan of, and FirstGen, who have made films I love. I’m honored to be part of it.”

Mazzei commented on The Third Hotel, “The book is wonderfully surreal and deeply unsettling in a way that lingered with me. I’m excited to be able to translate that feeling into a cinematic experience, and I feel lucky to be collaborating with such a thoughtful and talented team.”

Michael D’Alto of FirstGen added, “This is a wonderful creative team adapting a haunting and beautiful book. We are honored to work with them to actualize their vision, and can’t wait for everyone to see this film.”

A Mexico City-based filmmaker whose debut feature, Huesera: The Bone Woman, won the Best New Narrative Director and Nora Ephron Awards in its 2022 premiere at Tribeca, Cervera is repped by Untitled Entertainment, WME and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.

Mazzei is best known for writing and producing Blumhouse/Netflix’s Cam, for which she and Daniel Goldhaber were awarded Best Screenplay and Best First Feature at the Fantasia Film Festival. She also produced the Neon thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline and most recently co-wrote and produced Faces of Death, which marked IFC’s largest theatrical release to date. She is repped by Anonymous Content and Gang, Tyre, Ramer.

Van den Berg is also known for the novel Find Me, as well as the story collections I Hold a Wolf by the Ears, The Isle of Youth and What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us. She is repped by Curtis Brown Group.

In addition to The Testament of Ann Lee, the historical musical starring Amanda Seyfried as the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, FirstGen’s recent credits include Andrea Arnold’s Bird (Mubi), starring Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, and Dan Minahan’s On Swift Horses (Sony Pictures Classics), starring Jacob Elordi, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Diego Calva and Will Poulter.