Vienna-born filmmaker Wolfgang Fischer has signed with Gersh and Echo Lake, The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned.
Fischer directed and co-wrote Styx, a dram about a German doctor who, during a solo yachting trip, encounters a leaky vessel full of refugees. THR critic Boyd van Hoeij praised the film’s assembly as “pro on all levels” and singled out Fischer for finding “exactly the right, understated tone” in its third act in particular. Styx premiered last month at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the European Cinema Label prize for best European film in the Panorama section.
Fischer is now in preproduction on the features The Bear and Deserted as well as the series The Highway of Tears. His previous films include 2009’s What You Don’t See, 2001’s Grau, 2000’s Schoen 2000 and 1999’s Disk-Dusk and 9h11, as well as the 1999 documentary Remake of the Remake and the 1994 experimental film In Time.
Fischer studied psychology and painting at the University of Vienna before studying film at the Art Academy of Dusseldorf and the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. He received scholarships from the Munich Screenplay Program and Equinoxe Europe and worked as an assistant for Paul Morrissey and Nan Hoover.
