Bleeding Blue Bird is a feature film written and directed by Lev Prudkin, produced by Mirage Adventures Studios and Sterling Pictures. The film runs 1 hour 43 minutes and is a United Kingdom production and premiered at the Chelsea Film Festival in New York, October 2025.
Synopsis
A travelling international theatre troupe prepares an English-language performance of Maurice Maeterlinck’s play The Blue Bird in Kyiv. When the lead performer playing The Cat is abducted, the director takes over the role. Outsiders soon infiltrate the production with hidden intentions.
The search for Maeterlinck’s symbol of happiness takes a darker turn as rehearsals and performances begin to blur into real life. Actors slip between stage personas and private selves until illusion and reality become inseparable.
The repetition of rehearsal, the tension of performance, and the pursuit of artistic rapture push the troupe into a descent of corruption, madness, and unsettling visions of what may lie ahead.
Director - Lev Prudkin
Lev Prudkin is the writer, director, and editor of Bleeding Blue Bird. A graduate of VGIK Moscow and a filmmaker who studied screenwriting in Los Angeles, his previous feature No-One won more than ten international awards including Best Film and Best Director.
His work is defined by a commitment to cinema as an experience of transformation and atmosphere rather than conventional narrative. Director’s Note “Bleeding Blue Bird is not an adaptation of Maeterlinck play but a film about what happens when art escapes the stage and invades life.”
Producers
Produced by Mirage Adventures Studios and Sterling Pictures. Vladimir Prudkin is an accomplished filmmaker and theatre director whose career spans several decades across Europe. He has produced and directed numerous works including Autumn Wind, Scenes of Death, and No-One. Bleeding Blue Bird stands as a major undertaking that carries international acknowledgement and affirms the family’s distinguished legacy in theatre and cinema.
Michael Riley is the London-based Executive Producer with a track record of distinctive independent films including Sugarhouse, Chosen, and Crowhurst. For Bleeding Blue Bird he brought international industry experience and oversight, ensuring the project could bridge artistic ambition with professional production standards.
Director’s Statement
Bleeding Blue Bird is not an adaptation of Maeterlinck but a film about what happens when art escapes the stage and invades life. I grew up backstage in a family of theatre people, surrounded by rehearsals, costumes, and the hidden world behind the curtain. I wanted to capture that atmosphere of awe and danger, a place where transformation is constant and where performance can consume reality itself.
The film is built as an experience rather than a conventional narrative. I wanted audiences to enter a maze of sensations, visions, and premonitions, to feel how the line between theatre and life becomes porous.
For me, cinema is not about reproducing heritage but about creating something alive that transforms us. Bleeding Blue Bird is my attempt to show that art, when truly free, is both fragile and powerful, capable of unsettling us while reminding us of what it means to dream.
Origins and Family History
The origins of Bleeding Blue Bird go back to the 1990s, when Prudkin began writing the script while studying at VGIK in Moscow. He drew from his memories of childhood Sundays at the Moscow Art Theatre, where he often watched Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird from the director’s box.
His grandfather, Mark Prudkin, was one of Stanislavski’s leading actors, and his grandmother, Yekaterina, worked as a first assistant director. For the young Prudkin, the backstage world was a place of enchantment and danger, where transformations were constant and performance never truly ended.
His earliest draft already included the dramatic twist that remains central to the finished film: an actor vanishes from the stage mid-performance, forcing the director to step in.
The project was revived in 2017 after Prudkin’s award-winning feature No-One. He rewrote the script from the ground up as a director’s script, prioritising image, transition, and rhythm rather than commercial formulas. When it came to production, Kyiv’s Theatre on Podil on Andriivskyi Descent was chosen for its mixture of modernity and history.
Why This Film Matters
Bleeding Blue Bird is a discovery film built for festivals, critics, and cultural discourse. It is anchored by a soundtrack that bridges cinema and music culture, featuring tracks from Depeche Mode, Actress, and Else alongside an original score by Jim Cornick and Matt Loveridge.
This musical identity extends the film’s reach into music, art, and academic coverage. With Arthur Darvill (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) and Hannah Arterton (Walking on Sunshine, The Peripheral), the film brings recognisable names into an avant-garde setting.
Bleeding Blue Bird is not positioned as mainstream entertainment but as an art-house experience designed for audiences that value originality, experiment, and cultural lineage.
For programmers it is a bold addition to festival lineups. For critics it is a work that insists on originality and philosophical depth. For academics it is a case study in the living legacy of Symbolism and surrealism.
Bleeding Blue Bird carries a powerful connection to Depeche Mode. The film features “Little 15,” written by Martin Gore, a haunting composition that underscores its surreal and symbolic world.
With its blending of theatre and cinema, Bleeding Blue Bird resonates with the same intensity and atmosphere that has long drawn audiences to Depeche Mode’s music.
Production Context
The film was shot at the Theatre on Podil, a contemporary venue located on the historic Andriivskyi Descent in Kyiv, one of Europe’s most atmospheric streets. It is not a political commentary but a Symbolist exploration of performance, imagination, and cultural legacy.
Cast Highlights
- Arthur Darvill (Doctor Who, Legends of Tomorrow, Broadchurch) plays The Director, who also takes on the role of The Cat. His performance explores the collapse of control between stage and life.
- Hannah Arterton (Walking on Sunshine, Safe, The Peripheral) plays The Queen of Night, a commanding presence who addresses the audience in the climactic performance.
- Iryna Kudashova (The Taste of Freedom) plays Sonya, a young woman drawn into the troupe’s mysterious final performance.
Credits
- Written, Directed, Edited by Lev Prudkin
- Producers: Vladimir Prudkin, Mirage Adventures Studios, Sterling Pictures
- Executive Producer Michael Riley
- Cinematography by Boris Litovchenko
- Production and Costume Design by Olena Drobna
- Makeup by Tetiana Tatarenko
- Music by Jim Cornick and Matt Loveridge
Key Facts
- Year: 2025
- Language: English
- Runtime: 1h 43m
- Genre: Surreal Drama and Metacinema
- Filming Location: Theatre on Podil, Kyiv
- Format: DCP, ProRes | Aspect ratio 2.40:1 | 5.1 surround