LITTLE BIRD

LOG LINE

A young girl accidentally opens a portal to hell and makes a deal with the devil. The devil agrees to give Maggie the gift of flight, but there’s a catch, if she cannot master his gift within 12 days and fly away from her neglectful family, her soul is his.

ABOUT

Little Bird is a dark fairy tale with fantastical horror elements. Comps include: Let The Right One In, Pan’s Labyrinth and Donnie Darko.

SHORT SYNOPSIS

A young girl accidentally opens a portal to hell and calls the devil. The devil tells her there are no accidents and offers her a deal. He gives Maggie the gift of flight, but there’s a catch. If she can't master this gift within 12 days and fly away from her neglectful family - for good - then her soul is his.

The first few days, Maggie barely makes it off the ground. When she blurts out to her grandfather that she can fly, he humiliates her. So the devil tells her how to get revenge. When she accidentally kills the old man, the devil reminds her that there are no accidents.

As the days pass, Maggie flies higher and the devil’s influence intensifies. But when she finally flies far enough away from home to call it freedom, she’s targeted by a sexual predator. And Maggie decides that in this world, she needs the devil.

Many years later, Maggie is home for her father’s funeral. When she spots the pervert at the wake, the chasm under the stairs opens up again. And Maggie discovers she has accidentally left herself a way to get her soul back.

DIRECTOR STATEMENT

I want to capture the magic and intensity of the dreams I had as a child. And to explore the duality of fantasy - on the one hand an escape from the harshness and dreariness of the real world and a way to experience all of the difficult emotions a repressed society denies us, but on the other, a means of dissociation and alienation - a dark secret about who you really are.

I’m also really interested in the way our identities and “inner voices” develop, and the idea that there is always a kind of dialogue between different parts and versions of ourselves, even through time. The devil in Maggie’s head is like an older version of Maggie growing inside her as she internalises the darkness in the world. But “little Maggie” persists and survives even after this darker self takes over.

Little Bird also explores the dynamics of neglect and the particular vulnerabilities it engenders. Little Maggie isn’t subject to any physical or verbal cruelties, but the absence of parenting leaves a hole. A space she interprets in the worst way possible. So into the hole a darkness seeps - a mirror world that refracts the hollow sanctimony of a religion that doesn’t make sense to little Maggie. She doesn’t want to be Eve, an afterthought made from a rib, created to serve and eternally condemned for her disobedience. She wants above all else to be free, but if she can’t be free, she’d rather be the serpent.