New York (May 12, 2026) – The production company FirstGen is now developing a feature film adaptation of Laura van den Berg’s critically acclaimed novel, The Third Hotel. The company has brought on the internationally renowned Michelle Garza Cervera to direct and award-winning writer Isa Mazzei to pen the screenplay for the film. FirstGen will produce. The project follows the production company’s recent projects including The Testament of Ann Lee by Mona Fastvold, Birdby Andrea Arnold, and On Swift Horses by Dan Minahan.
Laura van den Berg’s novel 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 Third Hotel was celebrated by critics as a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. The book received critical praise from TIME, The New Yorker, NPR, and was called an “inscrutable future cult classic” by The New York Times Book Review.
Michelle Garza Cervera is a Mexico City-based director and screenwriter whose debut feature Huesera: The Bone Woman, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2022, winning the Best New Narrative Director and Nora Ephron Awards, establishing her as a leader in psychological horror filmmaking.
Isa Mazzei is best known for writing and producing Blumhouse’s breakout hit CAM. Credited as a co-filmmaker with director Daniel Goldhaber, the duo was awarded with “Best Screenplay” and “Best First Feature” at the Fantasia International Film Festival. She also produced the Neon thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline, and most recently, co-wrote and produced IFC’s largest theatrical release to date, Faces of Death.
Laura van den Berg is the author of several works of fiction, including the novels Find Me and The Third Hotel, 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.
Michelle Garza Cervera is repped by Untitled Entertainment, WME, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. Isa Mazzei is repped by Anonymous Content, The Lede Company, and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman.