Johnny Knoxville and Jason Flemying are starring in two new thrillers from Vienna-based Pont Pictures that are slated to film in Serbia this year.
Knoxville is toplining the psychological thriller “Night Sessions,” based a script by American writer Christopher Beachum that Pont Pictures’ Philipp Mair Vargas came across on The Black List database of unproduced screenplays.
Flemyng, meanwhile, stars in “Fractal,” a time-loop thriller about a toxic relationship that leads to murder from writer-director Faisal Hashmi, which will likewise lens in Serbia.
Pont Pictures is also producing “Tunnel Vision,” a supernatural thriller from American director Justin P. Lange, whose credits include the 2021 horror drama “The Seventh Day,” starring Guy Pearce and Stephen Lang, and 2022’s Blumhouse Television and MGM+ pic “The Visitor,” starring Finn Jones and Jessica McNamee.
“Night Sessions” is directed by Austrian filmmaker Gregor Schmidinger, who made a critical splash with his 2019 debut feature “Nevrland.” Knoxville plays a charismatic psychiatrist from the U.S. living in exile in Berlin, where he hosts a late-night radio show. A rockstar therapist haunted by his past, Dr. Rick Brennan helps lonely and broken callers with their problems on his daily radio show, until his life is upended by a mysterious caller who accuses him of a horrendous crime, leading to a deadly cat and mouse game between the two.
Philipp Mair Vargas
Pont Pictures
Describing “Night Sessions” as one the best scripts he’s read in a long time, Mair Vargas says the part of Brennan is an “an actor’s showcase” and ideal for Knoxville.
Despite the Berlin setting, the film will shoot entirely in the Serbian capital. “The movie is 90% inside the radio station,” notes Mair Vargas. “We found a nice location in Belgrade that has a view of the brutalist architecture and the brutalist nature of the city — it’s fantastic, a perfect fit.”
“Fractal,” meanwhile, follows, Emily, who has been married to her abusive and alcoholic husband Tom (played by Flemyng) for six years and has finally had enough. She teams up with her ex-convict former boyfriend to kill Tom and bury his body in nearby woods. But what seems like the perfect murder quickly turns into a never-ending nightmare as they find themselves stuck in a terrifying time loop in which Tom keeps coming back.
Also attached alongside Flemyng is Gabriela Garcia Vargas.
Mair Vargas initially planned to shoot “Night Sessions” and “Fractal” in Austria, but after government budget cuts defunded the Austrian Film Institute’s ÖFI Plus funding initiative, he decided to head to Serbia, which offered an ideal alternative and a 25% tax rebate on local production expenditures.
Pont Pictures had previously used the ÖFI Plus subsidy program to finance international co-productions, such as Glenn McQuaid’s comedy-thriller “The Restauration at Grayson Manor,” starring Chris Colfer and Alice Krige.
Without the support of ÖFI Plus, shooting in Austria with private equity has become too high-risk under the current conditions, Mair Vargas notes.
Austria still offers funding for international productions via its FISA Plus incentive aimed at film, TV and streaming projects and service productions via a 30% rebate, but Pont Pictures had utilized the ÖFI Plus vehicle, which specifically targeted Austrian films and co-productions.
Likewise dealing with supernatural twists and turns is “Tunnel Vision,” a movie that is ultimately about grief, guilt and the trauma that can make kids turn into monsters, says Mair Vargas. “It’s such a great, metaphorical piece of art.”
Written by Moritz Licht and Jonas Steinacker, both former students of Michael Haneke, the story follows a troubled couple and their young son who, while driving through a tunnel in the Austrian Alps, become trapped in a nightmarish existence after a natural phenomenon suspends the rules of space and time.
The team is currently exploring options, and while Austria is the preferred location, in view of the current situation, that may not be feasible, Mair Vargas says.
Pont Pictures is also working on “Amygdalla,” described as an elevated horror pic that plays with hyperrealism, co-directed by Adriana Mrnjavac and Nicole Stigler. The production is being revised following the ÖFI Plus cuts but the film will likely still shoot in Austria.