Max Bessmertny, Founder and Managing Director

Max Bessmertny is an award winning writer-director whose short ‘Tricycle Thief’ world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Max’s 1980s thriller screenplay “Foreign Cop” was selected by the Torino Film Lab 2019, the Macau Film Market and Cannes Marché du Film in 2020. His first directorial feature film is The Violin Case, which is in its final phase before completing post-production. It was featured as a Work-in-Progress in the Festival of Young Cinema in Macau in 2024.

The Violin Case was done with very little resources when the city in which Max shot, Macao, was still under strict quarantines and lockdowns due to the then ongoing pandemic. The film was shot over the course of 21 nights and follows a struggling artist as he breaks free from his manipulative gallery and sets off on a one night odyssey to locate his artwork accidentally forgotten in a taxi.

Max founded Pontus Maximus Productions in 2013 in order to make his passion projects come to life. His short film Tricycle Thief was the first ever Macau short film to world premiere in competition at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014, for which he later won a Kodak gold award.

In 2015 he was hired by City of Dreams and Studio City to create 40 creative comedic short videos for their food and beverage outlets.

He has written, directed and produced 20 short narrative films (many of them award winners), two short documentaries, over 40 video ads and one full length feature film.

Max earned a masters degree, in Film Production from NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a Bachelor’s in Management and Philosophy from the University of Leeds. Prior to joining the film industry, he worked as a creative specialist at Wynn Resorts and as a freelancer in the art world.