Summary
- “The Machine,” starring Bert Kreischer, was primarily filmed in Belgrade, Serbia, which doubled as Russia in the movie.
- The production team used the Pink Films International Studios in Šimanovci, Serbia, for interior scenes that couldn’t be filmed on location.
- Other Serbian towns like Sakule, Surčin, and Trešnja were also utilized for significant scenes in the film, including a forest sequence and Igor’s village.
Comedian Bert Kreischer’s famous 2016 stand-up routine was brought to life in the 2023 film The Machine, which tells the (mostly) true story of Kreischer’s time abroad in Russia. However, the action comedy movie was not filmed in the largest country in the world by area, aka, Russia. Instead, most of The Machine was captured in a different European country a little ways south of the Motherland. The film jumps back and forth between the past and the present day to tell the story of Kreischer’s real-life adventures with the Russian mob while studying abroad in the country.
However, The Machine strays from the truth during the present-day scenes, which feature Kreischer’s character, who is a fictionalized version of himself, and his father getting kidnapped by an aspiring mob leader and traveling to Russia to find a watch Bert stole when he was in college. Aside from Kreischer, the cast of the 2023 movie includes Mark Hamill as Albert, Jimmy Tatro as young Bert, Iva Babić as Irina, Robert Maaser as Alexei, Stephanie Kurtzuba as LeeAnn, Jessica Gabor as Sasha, Rita Bernard Shaw as Ashley, and Nikola Đuričko as Igor. These cast members and the crew traveled to one Balkan country to shoot The Machine in 2021.
Belgrade, Serbia
According to The Cinemaholic, the majority of Bert Kreischer’s The Machine was filmed in the capital of Serbia — Belgrade. The production team utilized the historic city to double as St. Petersburg, Russia, which is primarily where the 2023 action comedy film takes place. It is very difficult for movie productions to get permission to film in Russia because of extensive paperwork and hard-to-get permits, so The Machine‘s production team landed on Serbia as the next best thing. Numerous significant Belgrade landmarks can be spotted over the course of the movie, including Nikola Pašić Square, the Kalemegdan Fortress, the National Museum, the National Theatre, and Knez Mihailova Street.
Kreischer’s fictionalized version of himself studied abroad in Russia in 1999, and he was more concerned with partying than he was with school. His younger self, played by Jimmy Tatro, became associated with the Russian mob since they had a lot of influence during that time, and one mobster, Igor, was assigned to Bert’s class for protection. Bert and his classmates were warned to stay away from Igor, but Bert could not help himself and started drinking and partying with the Russian mobster and his friends. This is where he earned the nickname “The Machine” and how he got tangled up in a robbery on a train.
Flash forward to more than 20 years later, and Bert is a washed-up stand-up comedian who experiences family and career struggles. However, everything changed when Irina, the daughter of a prolific Russian mobster, kidnapped Bert and his father and took them to Russia to search for her own father’s watch that Bert stole on the train. While the story of The Machine might take place in Russia, the cast and crew shot most of the movie’s sequences in Belgrade, Serbia.
PFI Studios, Šimanovci, Serbia
The production team of The Machine could not rely solely on utilizing on-location spots for the 2023 action comedy feature, so they rented out space at the Pink Films International (PFI) Studios, a film production facility in Šimanovci, Serbia, which is just outside of Belgrade. The cast and crew shot numerous significant interior scenes at the film production studio that could not be captured on location elsewhere in the Balkan country. Although it is unclear which sequences were filmed at the PFI Studios, one could assume that the train scenes might have been shot at the facility.
Aside from The Machine, multiple other movies and television shows have been filmed at the PFI Studios in Šimanovci, Serbia. The film production company opened in 2010 and is home to eight soundstages, a 12-hectare back lot, high-tech production facilities, impressive exterior sets, an administration building, and more. Given its diversity and expansive options, it comes as no surprise that numerous production teams choose to utilize the PFI Studios for their projects. Some examples of films and television series that have been shot at the facility are Lockout, The Raven, In Secret, The Outpost, Extinction, The White Crow, Tau, The Community, and many others.
Sakule, Serbia
Although the majority of principal photography, which occurred from April to July 2021, for The Machine took place in Belgrade, Serbia, and at the PFI Studios, the cast and crew also used other towns in the Balkan country for the 2023 action comedy movie. One significant location utilized was the small village of Sakule in Serbia. Unfortunately, it is unknown which scenes were captured in Sakule. But based on photos and the seemingly small-town feel of Sakule, it is possible that the sequences of Igor’s village in the present day in The Machine were filmed there. Bert and Irina found themselves in the small town after getting kicked off the train in the film.
Trešnja, Serbia
The cast and crew of The Machine also traveled to Trešnja, Serbia, to capture other important scenes for Bert Kreischer’s semi-true story brought to life on the big screen. As one could imagine, Trešnja served as the partial backdrop for the forest scene in the 2023 action comedy film. Bert traveled through the woods after his father pushed him off the train in the sequence, and he ate a 20-year-old pot brownie for sustenance.
The protagonist started hallucinating and had a talk with his college-aged self about what the future had in store for him. However, Bert had to sober up very fast when someone started shooting at him and chased him through the forest. The gunman eventually caught up to Bert, and they immediately recognized one another. The shooter was Igor, who then took Bert back to his village to recover in The Machine.
Surčin, Serbia
The final location used in The Machine was Surčin, Serbia, or more specifically, the Forest of Bojčin. The Forest of Bojčin is located between the villages of Progar, Boljevci, and Ašanja in the municipality of Surčin. Like Trešnja, the Forest of Bojčin was utilized to capture the aforementioned forest scenes in Bert Kreischer’s The Machine.
Source: The Cinemaholic