Picture Tree Boards Real-Time Hostage Thriller ‘Last Call’ Ahead of EFM Launch

A live-broadcast hostage crisis unfolds in Last Call, the real-time thriller launching to buyers ahead of EFM. Tanweer Productions / VARIETY

Picture Tree Intl. has come aboard international sales for Last Call, a real-time hostage thriller inspired by true events, with the title set to launch to buyers ahead of the European Film Market. The first teaser has debuted as the project begins market premiere screenings.

Directed by Greek-Egyptian filmmaker Sherif Francis, Last Call unfolds on New Year’s Eve 1999 in Athens. As the world counts down to the new millennium, a desperate fugitive armed with a live grenade takes a family hostage and demands to go live on television. Broadcast in real time, the standoff pulls a young journalist, media executives, and a fractured police force into a crisis that grips the nation and spirals toward a tragic, irreversible outcome.

Francis, who co-wrote the script with Greek screenwriter Katerina Bei, describes the film as an interrogation of media influence, power dynamics, and institutional failure—ideas meant to resonate well beyond the story’s original setting. “With Last Call, I wanted audiences to feel the same immediacy and uncertainty I felt watching the real event unfold as a child—no preparation, no escape, just the unpredictable pace of real time,” Francis said.

The ensemble cast is led by Orfeas Avgoustidis, Maria Nafpliotou, Yorgos Benos, and Dimitris Lalos. The project is produced by Dionyssis Samiotis for Tanweer Productions and originated from the company’s Tanweer Pitching Days initiative, emerging from more than 300 submissions.

“Last Call immediately stood out to us for its gripping real-time structure, its true-event hook, and its international marketability,” said Andreas Rothbauer, founder and managing partner at Picture Tree Intl. He added that the film is positioned as an elevated European thriller capable of traveling across theatrical and premium platforms worldwide.

A domestic theatrical release in Greece and Cyprus is planned for March 19, with distribution handled by Tanweer Alliances and a nationwide rollout targeting more than 80 screens. Last Call is produced in co-production with ERT, the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Centre – Creative Greece, NOVA, and View Master Films, with support from EKKOMED.