How to tell Drupal to look for templates in module directory?
Maybe this one works:

/**
 * Implements hook_theme().
 */
function MODULE_theme($existing, $type, $theme, $path) {
  return array (
    'node__CONTENTTYPE' =&gt; array (
      'variables' =&gt; array( . . . ),
      'template' =&gt; 'node--CONTENTTYPE' ,
      'base hook' =&gt; 'node',
      'path' =&gt; drupal_get_path('module', 'MODULE'),
    ),
  );
}


Important here is the key 'base hook'.