(Moscow) The first feature film shot in space was released in cinemas in Russia on Thursday, arousing pride in Moscow for having beaten a rival project from the United States in the midst of a diplomatic crisis linked to the conflict in Ukraine.
To turn The challengea film featuring a surgeon sent to the International Space Station (ISS) to operate on an injured cosmonaut, Russia sent an actress and a director into orbit in October 2021 for 12 days.
The project, carried out with a bang to get ahead of a competing American initiative with Tom Cruise, is celebrated as a feat in Russia, recalling the space competition between Moscow and Washington during the Cold War.
“We are the first to have shot a feature film aboard a spaceship in orbit, again the first”, welcomed Vladimir Putin on April 12, who often plays on nostalgia for the Soviet era, when Moscow, for example, sent the first man into space in 1961.
In Moscow, onlookers parade in front of the Soyuz MS-18 space capsule, which brought the film crew back to Earth and which is now on display in the famous Gorky Park.
“We are proud of our Russian actors,” launches Polina Andreyeva, marketing specialist. “I can’t imagine at all how one can fly in space, where everything is unknown, where everything is foreign,” she told AFP.
“It’s very interesting to see how our people are progressing, that they were the first to make a film in space,” adds Tatiana Koulikova, a factory employee. “We are Russia, and Russia is always ahead,” she concludes.
Accelerated training
If this film arouses so much pride, it is also because Russia has been going through a period of deep diplomatic crisis with the West since the launch of Moscow’s offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.
The United States and European countries have imposed a series of diplomatic and economic sanctions on Russia.
For the moment, the space sector seems to be one of the last fields of cooperation between Russians and Westerners, even if the competition is fierce, especially since the emergence of private players, such as the American company SpaceX of Elon Musk.
Sign of state support, the film The challenge is co-produced by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the powerful public television channel Pervy Kanal, whose director, Konstantin Ernst, does not hide his joy at having beaten Hollywood.
“We are all fans of Gravity “, Hollywood film on space released in 2013, said Monday Mr. Ernst, during a press conference presenting the Russian film.
“But our Challengeshot in real weightlessness, today brings out the digital special effects” of the American film, he tackled.
Sequences shot within 230 m3 of the Russian module of the ISS and the participation of the three Russian professional cosmonauts stationed on board give an effect of authenticity to the film, previewed by AFP.
The challenge tells the story of the impossible mission of a surgeon, played by actress Ioulia Peressild, sent to the ISS to save a cosmonaut injured by debris during a spacewalk.
Director Klim Chipenko, 39, who handled the camera, lighting and sound recording, recorded 30 hours of footage there, 50 minutes of which are used in the final cut.
The camera follows the 38-year-old actress moving through the cramped space of the ISS, her blonde hair floating weightlessly. The two neo-cosmonauts underwent accelerated four-month training before being sent into space.
The film cost “less than a billion rubles” ($16.4 million), according to Mr. Ernst.