Firebird shares the true story of forbidden love, set in the Soviet Air Force at the height of the Cold War. This film is a journey of following love at all costs, of growing up, and of courage even in the most impossible of situations.

Bringing Sergey’s Story to Life

Firebird shares the true story of forbidden love, set in the Soviet Air Force at the height of the Cold War. This film is a journey of following love at all costs, of growing up, and of courage even in the most impossible of situations.

Peeter was first approached at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011, with Sergey Fetisov’s original memoir ‘A Tale about Roman’. He took the book and read it at home that weekend, and was so moved by the story he decided to turn it into his first feature film. He then began to write his first film script. After a couple of years of work, he thought that the screenplay was ready and started to look for actors to cast for the film.

It was then that Peeter was introduced to Tom Prior - through a film producer who had met Tom in Los Angeles when he was working there. They were introduced in December 2014 and the creative process began to flow. Tom and Peeter decided to shoot a concept trailer to help raise the financing for the film in July 2015, when Tom started giving small notes on script improvements. That lead him to engage with Peeter as a co-writer, and they wrote together for the next two and a half years. It was through this much more detailed approach that they decided to meet the man behind the story.

That is when they met Sergey Fetisov in Moscow.

During the days which Tom and Peeter interviewed Sergey about his life and the story behind the memoir, they got amazing insight into his character.

Sergey was a force of love, he lived with courage, joy and wonder at life.

In 2017, they learned that Sergey was ill, and had to undergo serious surgery. He sadly passed away following the surgery.

Since Tom and Peeter had been working so closely with the material and had got to know him intimately, they took the trip again to Russia and attended his funeral. It was at this very event that Tom and Peeter wholly committed to tell his story, and leave his legacy to the best of their ability.

Telling Sergey’s story of courage, love and fear during the height of the Cold War, and following his heart in the face of all the dangers of the Soviet Union at the time, is a testament and example of true love, that love is love.

Sergey’s True Story

Sergey Fetisov was born on August 12, 1952 in Oryol, Soviet Russia.

He served his two year mandatory conscription (which every Soviet man had to undergo) in the 1970s at the Soviet Air Force Base in occupied Estonia. Here he fell in love with a young maverick fighter pilot, and our film begins...

Later in life, Sergey graduated as an actor from Moscow’s prestigious GITIS institute, but turned down numerous offers from major theaters and took a job as a night mail man instead, after learning about his mother’s terminal illness. Sergey nursed his mother to death for 5 years, and for a while did not return to the stage, until a director rediscovered him on a city street.

Besides his extensive theatre career, Sergey acted in over 40 Soviet and later Russian films and TV series, including the Estonian feature film Georg (2007).

He was one of the founding members of the “Russian Style Theatre” in Oryol in 1994.

Sergey published his memoir “A Tale About Roman” in the early '90s under the pseudonym Sergey Nizhny. It’s a story of courage, love and fear during the height of the Cold War, and following his heart in the face of all the dangers of the Soviet Union at the time, is a testament and example of true love, that love is love.

In 2017, Sergey fell ill and had to undergo serious surgery. He passed away following surgery on May 3, 2017.

Sergey was a force of love, he lived with courage, joy and wonder at life.