The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents
Firebird
Irina Patkanian / Marion Schoevaert
At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2026
Country
USA, Ukraine
Language
English
Running Time
23
minutes
Year of Release
2026
About The Film
FAIRY-DOC, in stop motion animation
Once upon a time, there was a Firebird, who was caught and caged by the Father of the Motherland. To free herself, she laid him the egg of immortality from his seed. She lost her feathers and hid deep in the woods, weaving lace from snowflakes. Once upon today, the Father of the Motherland saw her lace on TikTok and waged a war to find and marry her. Dancing at the wedding, Lacemaker turned back into the firebird and burned the citadel down.
Irina Patkanian Director, Marion Schoevaert Director, Irina Patkanian Writer, Ksena Samborska Key Cast "Firebird", Michael Kaplan Key Casy "Colonel", Yevgenia Nayberg Lead Artist, Maxim Dondyuk War Photography, Marion Schoevaert Production Designer, Masha Yukhananov Animator, Jennah Camara Animator, Anna Carolina Bastos Sound Design, Vlada Tomova Composer, Elena Kalkova Visual Editing
About The Artist(s)
Irina Patkanian is an award-winning filmmaker, a Fulbright scholar, Professor of Film and Media Arts at Brooklyn College/CUNY, and the co-founder of In Parentheses, Inc. Irina Patkanian makes hybrid (fiction/nonfiction) films questioning history with poetry, memory with animation, performance with behavior. Irina’s films have screened at 150+ film festivals worldwide, incl. DOC NYC, Ann Arbor, STARZ Denver, Palm Springs, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and many others, winning 20+ awards. Her work has been supported by fellowships and grants from NYSCA, NYFA, Made in New York, Tow, Blaustein, Troy and Jerome Foundations; as well as artist residencies at the Obermann Center, MacDowell, the Millay Arts, Ucross Foundation and the Art Studios of Key West.
Marion Schoevaert has been developing her own style of physical theater for 25 years in New York, Seoul and France. She has directed, produced and choreographed more than twenty theater shows, operas and shadow plays, blending dance-theater, rhythmic text and live music. She works with artists from all disciplines and genres: painting, video, jazz, tango, hip hop, sports, martial arts, propaganda, graffiti, etc. to create visceral and raw emotional response from both actors and audiences.
Marion Schoevaert has created illustrations for 33 Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic. She has produced the successful Koltès New York Festival (7 plays) in New York and has directed a North Korean mass dance propaganda play with 2 orchestras and 100 actors, blending North and South Korean texts, music and style together. She has created 3 theatre companies in New York, Seoul and France.