Firebird

Told from a perspective of a state apparatchik whose job is to sit on the egg that contains the death of the Father of the Motherland, FIREBIRD features stop motion animation with documentary photography by a renowned Ukrainian photographer Maxim Dondyuk.

Logline: Once Upon Today, a Firebird marries Father of the Motherland to destroy his war machine.

Synopsis: ONCE UPON A TIME, the Father of the Motherland caught a Firebird and forced her to lay him an egg of immortality from his seed. Firebird lost her bird nature from this ordeal but not her magic. She settled in the dark woods making lace from snowflakes. ONCE UPON TODAY, the Father of the Motherland saw her magic lace creations on TikTok and waged a war against her country to force her to marry him. At the wedding, a lace firebird that she had made burned everything down. Everything, except the egg.

Irina Patkanian - writer, director, editor (Russia/NYC)

Marion Schoevaert - production and character designer, lead artist, director (France/NYC)

Maxim Dondyuk - art photographer (Ukraine)  https://maximdondyuk.com/
A renowned Ukrainian art photographer, working with video, text, and archival material. He has won numerous awards, including International Photographer of the Year in Lucie Awards, Magnum Photos competition; and exhibited widely incl. the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris.

Yevgenia Nayberg – artist/illustrator (Ukraine/ NYC) https://nayberg.org
Born and raised in Kyiv, Ukraine, she has published many books, and has many awards, incl. the NEA/TCG Fellowship, the Independent Theatre Award, the Arlin Meyer Award, three Sydney Taylor Medals, a Library Guild Gold Selection Award, and many others.

Masha Yukhananov - visual artist / animator (Russia/NYC) New York-based , Maria (Masha) Yukhananov has been working on several projects (stop motion animation documentaries) Once Upon Today, Firebird, Selkie, The Man Who Hid The Sun and the Moon.

Vlada Tomova, music director, vocalist (Ukraine/Bulgaria/Russia/NYC) www.vladatomovamusic.com
Born in Ukraine, Vlada holds a Voice Performance degree from Berklee College of Music. She is the Musical Director of acclaimed NYC Balkan Tales; Yasna Voices and New York's Bulgarian Women's Choir (Bulgarian Voices Trio, Songs of the Spice Road).

Anna Carolina Bastos, sound designer & mixer, audio engineer (Brazil/NYC) https://bio.site/acsbbx
Anna is a Brooklyn-based sound designer, production sound mixer, audio engineer, theater sound operator (A1), and film composer. She holds a B.A. in Film Production from FACHA (Rio de Janeiro) and an MFA in Media Scoring from CUNY Brooklyn College/Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema.

Elena Kalkova, Visual editing (Russia/NYC) elenakalkova.net
is a multimedia artist and researcher of Eastern European Art History. She explores feminism and construction of gender in the Post-Soviet space. Artist, MFA School of Visual Art.

Jennah Camara - After Effect

Featuring Ksena Samborska as Firebird and Michael Kaplan as Colonel