Spoiler Warning: Firebird (2021)
Firebird is an Estonian/British Cold War film based on Sergey Fetisov’s memoir The Story Of Roman, which premiered last year at London’s BFI Flare Festival and has been loudly praised by the general audience and the film critics alike. Daily Mirror dubbed it as a “sweeping melodrama that looks picture-perfect, particularly in the sumptuous moments of desire in the rippling seas which comes with danger and eroticism and resembles something from a gorgeous perfume advert.” It has collected awards at the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival, San Diego’s FilmOut, Frameline in San Francisco, and Key West Film Festival in Florida.
St Petersburg’s Side By Side Film Festival opened virtually in 2021, with Firebird setting off a stream of hateful reactions. The government blacklisted the Russian version of their website due to the relentless pressure from far-right groups. Quite predictably, the film has also attracted homophobic protesters during its screening in Russian cinemas. Even though the creators claim they did not have any political intentions when making the film, a true story of a forbidden romance between two men is a statement powerful enough on its own in the current LGBTQ+ rights climate in Russia and around the world.
Ahead of its international theatre release on April 29, let’s take a closer look at why this heart-wrenching European drama directed by Peeter Rebane is worth our attention.
Finding Love in a Hopeless Place
Roadside Attractions
In the 1970s Soviet Estonia, Sergey (Tom Prior) is a young starry-eyed soldier with an interest in photography who dreams of becoming an actor rather than fighting wars. He is anxiously waiting to get through his military service until he meets a dashing air force pilot, Roman (Oleg Zagorodnii). He takes Sergey to his first ballet performance as a gesture of goodwill after he admits that he’s always wanted to see one but never had the chance. The two quickly develop a bond that goes beyond avuncular camaraderie, and they begin to meet secretly late at night in the barracks. An anonymous report puts a sudden end to these intimate encounters. Roman faces a risk of dismissal and five years in the Gulag, so he decides to abandon his lover. He marries Luisa (Diana Pozharskaya), the base commander’s secretary and Sergey’s childhood friend, who had grown tired of waiting for Sergey to make a move. But Roman’s love for Sergey hasn’t faded.
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English actor Tom Prior, who also co-wrote the script, is the movie’s international star with titles like The Theory of Everything or Kingsman: The Secret Service in his filmography. He described his humbling experience of meeting the real-life Sergey Fetisov when asked by The New East Is Queer:
In the same interview, Peeter Rebane, for whom Firebird is a remarkably accomplished directing debut of a feature film, talks about the importance of bringing to life a gay love story set in the Soviet Era:
“It was an honour to meet him, and he was so very full of heart. He was a very heart-led man. You could tell that he had such a sunny persona, and despite having had a lot of trials and tribulations in love, he was bold and happy. So I bought that level of following your heart, and that bounciness to the performance – where I could – without making it seem out of context at the same time.”
Fighting Hate With Love
Roadside Attraction
A chilling statement precedes the end credits reminding us of today’s Russian LGBTQ+ community and their ongoing human rights struggle: “Article 121 was annulled in 1993. In 2013, Russia instituted new laws banning ‘homosexual propaganda.’” Beyond the typical closeted gay love triangle involving two secret male lovers and an unfortunate close female friend serving as a conformist mimicry, the film offers nuanced parallels between the KGB’s persecution of homosexuals and Putin’s shaming anti-gay rhetoric. Putin, himself a former KGB officer, enacted the controversial law that, under the guise of protecting children from homosexuality, effectively incites bullying of the queer youth and hate crimes against his queer copatriots. It was ruled discriminatory by the European Court of Human Rights in 2017.
“I was (…) fascinated and really surprised when I read the original manuscript that such a relationship could have actually existed in the Soviet airforce. Then we went on to interview people who served in the Soviet military in the 1970s and found out that many such relationships existed, and we were also fortunate enough to interview Sergey in Moscow. But at the same time, I do feel also that it is important to share this story in light of the real horrors that are going on in Russia and especially in Chechnya today. It is important to remind people about the importance of love and how such relationships have existed throughout the ages.”
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In the USSR, Sergey and Roman would be punished for their love by being sent to a forced labour camp where degradation, violence, and assault were rampant. A Russian gay poet Gennady Trifonov who escaped one of the camps in 1977, gave a shocking testimony in an open letter: “The position of gays in the death camps of the Third Reich was nothing compared to this.” In the modern-day Chechnya, the two would be sent to a clandestine torture centre if they weren’t already honour killed by their fanaticized families. Horrors of this regime were revealed in a spine-chilling 2020 documentary, Welcome to Chechnya. The gay purge is orchestrated by Chechnyan president Ramzan Kadyrov, who was enabled by Putin himself.
Firebird represents a beacon of hope. As faint as its light may seem in the bleakness of the situation, it keeps shining nevertheless. Despite the bitter ending, it ultimately opposes hatred with an infinitely more powerful force – the universal message of love surviving against all odds.
