Taggart Productions and Votiv Films have begun principal photography on the sci-fi psychological thriller.

The story from debut feature writer-director team Mario Miscione and Aaron Hann centres on 50 strangers who awaken inside a mysterious chamber.

The real-time story plays out as the captives race to uncover why they are incarcerated and decide among themselves who deserves to survive. Miscione and Hann created web series The Vault.

Taggart president and CEO Michael Nardelli and Votiv founder and CEO Brent Stiefel made the announcement (27). Nardelli, Stiefel and Scott Einbinder are producing.

The ensemble cast includes Carter Jenkins Julie Benz, Allegra Masters, Daniel Yelsky, David Saucedo, Gloria Sandoval and Lawrence Kao.

Circle is one of the most unique screenplays we’ve read in the last few years,” said Einbinder. “It examines the human condition in a way we’ve never seen before. It’s essentially 12 Angry Men with the mystery and mythology of some of thegreater episodes of The Twilight Zone.

“Combined with the real time structure the writer-directors set as a template for the film, Circle really does become a pressure cooker mix of thrills and social-psychological turmoil.”

Circle, at its core, is a story about people and the ways they see one another,” said Miscione and Hann. “It was intended, from the very first word, to be a film that stripped away all of the pretenses that we as a society can hide behind.”