The first feature film shot in orbit hit theaters in Russia on Thursday, with a particularly powerful title related to Moscow’s renewed space ambitions in the face of Washington: The Challenge.
To make this film, which features a surgeon dispatched to the International Space Station (ISS) to operate on an injured cosmonaut, Russia sent an actress and a director into orbit for 12 days in October 2021.
The project, carried out with a bang to get ahead of a rival American initiative starring Tom Cruise, has become an object of pride in Russia, reminiscent of the Cold War space competition between Moscow and Washington.
“We are the first to shoot a feature film on board a spacecraft in orbit, the first again,” said Vladimir Putin in 12th place in 1961.
The film is co-produced by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the television station Pervy Kanal, whose director Konstantin Ernst does not hide his delight at having beaten Hollywood.
“We are all fans of ‘Gravity’, a Hollywood film about space that was released in 2013,” Ernst said Monday during a press conference introducing the Russian film.
“But our ‘Challenge’, shot in true zero gravity, brings out the ‘digital special effects’ of American cinema today,” he tackled.
The sequences shot in the 230 m3 of the Russian module of the ISS and the participation of the three Russian professional cosmonauts stationed on board give an authentic effect to the film previewed by AFP.
The Challenge chronicles the impossible mission of a surgeon, played by actress Ioulia Peressild, who is sent to the ISS to rescue a cosmonaut injured by debris during a spacewalk.
Director Klim Chipenko, 39, who handled camera, lighting and sound, recorded 30 hours of footage there, 50 minutes of which will be used in the final cut.
The camera follows the 38-year-old actress as she moves through the confined space of the ISS, her blonde hair floating weightlessly. The two neo-cosmonauts underwent an accelerated four-month training program before being sent into space.
According to Mr. Ernst, the film cost “less than a billion rubles” (11.1 million euros).