He shows promise as a pilot, however, and is assigned as convoy to a newly arrived, hotshot lieutenant named Roman (Oleg Zagorodnii. A fresh-faced recruit with his head in the clouds, the gentle Sergey ( Tom Prior) nurses dreams of becoming an actor. The horseplay is interrupted when two uniformed men point guns their way, a stark reminder that a military base is no place for fun. The film’s tragic throughline won’t break any molds, but with smoldering performances by its two strapping young leads, the target audience is unlikely to care.ĭespite the heat of its title, “Firebird” begins in the water as three lithe bodies splash playfully in a dark sea. Taking an altogether different tack, the stately period drama “ Firebird” tells the true story of an ill-fated military romance between two men in Soviet-occupied Estonia during the late 1970s and early ’80s.īased on a memoir by Sergey Fetisov, the steamy Cold War drama honors this lost chapter of gay history with a handsome rendering that only occasionally stumbles under the weight of historical accuracy. David France’s “Welcome to Chechnya” documented the horrific genocide being waged against LGBTQ people in what is now a Russian Republic, a terrifying sign of what could lay in store for LGBTQ Ukrainians. Not that we needed a reminder, but Russia’s recent human rights violations - while flagrant - are sadly not a new phenomenon.
