The first feature film shot in space has premiered in Russian cinemas, with Moscow celebrating beating a rival Hollywood project amid a confrontation with the west.
The Challenge is about a surgeon dispatched to the International Space Station to save an injured cosmonaut. Russia sent an actor and a film director for a 12-day stint on the ISS in October 2021 to film scenes onboard the orbiting laboratory.
The Russian crew beat a Hollywood project announced in 2020 by Tom Cruise in collaboration with Nasa and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has lauded the film, saying: “We are the first to have shot a feature film in orbit, aboard a spacecraft. Once again the first.”
The Soviet Union pioneered space travel and the film crew’s mission added to a long list of firsts for Russia’s space industry after several setbacks, including botched launches.
In The Challenge a surgeon played by Yulia Peresild, 38, is sent to the ISS to save a cosmonaut injured during a spacewalk.
The director, Klim Shipenko, 39, who was in charge of camera, lighting and sound, brought back 30 hours of footage, 50 minutes of which were used in the final cut.
Peresild and Shipenko underwent training for four months before going to space on a Soyuz spacecraft accompanied by a cosmonaut. The sequences were shot in the Russian module of the ISS and featured cameo appearances by three Russian cosmonauts stationed there at the time.
The camera followed Peresild moving through the cramped space, her blond hair floating in zero gravity.
Before the film’s release, the capsule which brought Peresild and Shipenko back to Earth was put on display in central Moscow.
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Tatyana Kulikova, who works at a factory in the city of Ufa, said she looked forward to watching the movie. “We are Russia, and Russia is always ahead,” the 45-year-old said.
The film was a joint project from the space agency Roscosmos and the top Russian TV network Channel One, whose boss, Konstantin Ernst, did not hide his joy in beating Hollywood.
“We are all fans of Gravity,” Ernst told reporters on Monday, referring to the Hollywood blockbuster starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. “But our Challenge shot in actual weightlessness shows that was just CGI,” he said.
According to Ernst, the film cost less than a billion roubles (£10m), although the price tag of the entire project has not been revealed.