Photo credit: Herrki-Erich Merila | Courtesy of Roadside Attractions, LLC / The Factory.

Why tell the story of Firebird today? Films can be used to hold a mirror to our modern times and use the power of storytelling to highlight the injustices and threats. Mark Twain once stated that history doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes. According to co-writer/director Peeter Rebane, “We live at a time when basic human rights, equality and freedom are once again under attack around the world.”

That’s one of the reasons he found the story of Sergey, a solider on a Soviet Air Force base in the 1970’s Communist Estonia, who had to conceal his sexual affair with Roman, a pilot stationed at the base. Sergey and Roman navigated their hidden desires at a time when Soviet men in uniform caught having a sexual affair were met with the severest punishment.

“It’s pretty scary what’s going on around the world, especially in the last few months and the last few years,” Rebane said regarding the influx of anti-rights and anti-LGBTQ laws. “I think it’s time to draw more compassion and awareness to the communities and to hopefully get people to understand that love is love and there is nothing good or bad; thinking makes it so.”

Firebird is based on the book The Story of Roman by Sergey Fetisov and stars Tom Prior (who also-co-wrote the film with Rebane), Oleg Zagorodnii and Diana Pozharskaya.

Bringing the project to light

The origins of Firebird started nearly seven years ago when Rebane was given Fetisov’s memoir.

“I read it at home over the weekend and literally cried. I felt I had to turn this into a feature film,” Rebane recalled, adding that this was such a tragic, yet fascinating story that he recognized immediately the potential for Fetisov’s story to become a movie.

Then the writing began. Once he had a draft ready to go, he was introduced to Tom Prior by a mutual film producer. Rebane knew immediately that Prior was the best actor to play Sergey. They shot two scenes as a proof of concept for financiers and then worked on improving the story. That led to a two-year collaboration with Prior and Rebane rewriting the script together.

“We really researched and developed the story a lot more until it was ready,” Rebane said.

Rebane shared that because this film is based on a true event, the first goal was to remain true to the story. Secondly, he had to make it universally understandable and relatable so the audience would get the full cultural context of the time and the place.

The research took the duo to meetings with formerly retired air force base commanders, pilots, privates, air control center operators and others. These men had served in the Soviet army during the 1970s and were in relationships at the time. From that series of meetings, he and Prior could form the character choices regarding what they would do, including little details like what food they ate or music they listened to. “It all helped us to sharpen the story and build a world.”

Further research took place during the rewrites. Rebane explains how they did both research and writing simultaneously. “A question would come up and we would find someone to talk to or conduct research on the internet. It wasn’t in stages where we research for a month or two and then we write. We would write for half a day and then during that time take an hour to find something out or email or call. It was a real fluid process.”

Creative decision-making

Whether novel or non-fiction, when making the leap from book to screen, the filmmaker will have to make some sacrifices and include new scenes and characters to appease the story and pacing of the movie. Firebird is no exception, although Rebane and Prior refused to budge on the spirit of the story itself.

“We had to sacrifice quite a bit because as a book it had a lot of explanation and different scenes,” Rebane said. He shared that there was a whole sequence between Sergey’s exiting the military and studying at drama school where he returns home. “There’s some amazing scenes and characters and sadly they all had to go because it slowed down the story and became a slump in the middle of the film.”

Just as they had to omit parts of the book, they also had to add to the story to make it flow in the context of a film.

The memoir was written 20 years after the affair, which meant that Sergey remembered certain things in a different light and didn’t include as much content on the threat. It had focused more on Sergey and Roman’s love story.

“I think he saw Luisa’s (Pozharskaya) character very much of an obstacle–a bitter negative obstacle,” Rebane said of the memoir. “As writers, we went into what it was like for her and realized it must have been equally tragic, if not more, because she didn’t know she was choosing this life or relationship.”

He added, “There was quite a bit of adding and subtracting from getting from a book to a film.”

Finally, Rebane and Prior found another instance where they fought to keep the spirit of the memoir and Sergey’s life alive. Early on, they had some producers push them to make this into a Cold War thriller because that genre sells better than dramas.

“At one point we felt this is not authentic, this is not the story. We said, ‘We’re going back to the original story,’ and we made it more about the human drama and love story with Sergey as the core main subject and theme. That put everything into focus,” Rebane said.

The writing process

When Rebane creates characters, especially in a story based on true events, he wants to understand what the character was like in real life and have a prototype. He tries to seek out somebody he knows, or can think of, and observe how this person would behave in certain situations. This is just one part of his process of building a whole world of characters from real-life, piecing together people he knew or could research.

When it came to crafting the story itself, Rebane mentioned a Masterclass that he and Prior watched together.

Rebane explained, “We had this amazing Masterclass with David Mamet. He talks about the beginning stages of writing where you have to know your destination and be very clear about the end of the story. Having those milestones in place and then writing around that was helpful to keep the flow and dramatic tension up.”

Whether it’s a historical piece or a contemporary film, he suggests writers conduct a lot of research.

“You’re creating this world, so if 90 percent of the research never ends up on the page, it’s still informing a lot of decisions while writing and directing,” Rebane said.

As a director, Rebane suggests a lot of sketching, visuals and planning because, when shooting an independent or lower budget period piece, you can’t just pick any location and start shooting. He tells of how he and his crew would visit locations and discover they had limited scope on where they could shoot. This meant they had to choose a spot knowing that the camera had to always point in one single direction. The reason: there was a modern skyscraper nearby.

For an indie production, Rebane said the more time to plan, the better the results.

Firebird will be released in theaters on April 29, 2022.