FROM RUSSIAN SCI-FI TO OUTER SPACE DRAMA
This Film Forum is for English-speakers interested in film as a cultural medium, who had a brief and limited access to Russian film and music for film mainly through 1990’s-early 2000’s.
I cherish that period for our worlds coming together to heal and reconcile our past discords for a better and safer future on our planet.
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One of the most outstanding global projects of that remarkable time was creation in 1992 and launch in 1998 of the International Space Station (ISS) jointly operated by the US, Russia's, Europe's and Japan's space agencies.
Science Fiction Made Reality
In October 2021 a Russian film crew took a flight to the ISS orbiting Earth above 400 km/250 miles to shoot a space drama in the outer space first time in mankind's history.
"The Challenge"/"Вызов" is a full length feature film about a female cardiac surgeon sent to operate on a cosmonaut (played by an actual Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy) who loses consciousness on the ISS.
Director Kim Shipenko and lead actress Yulia Peresild underwent rigorous training ahead of their space flight - centrifuge and vibration stand tests, training flights in zero gravity, parachute training along with understudies. The crew has practiced photography and filming and using equipment that they would interact with on the space station. Other cosmonauts on board would assist and act as part of the film crew since their resources are more limited in the space environment.
The movie is set to release on April 20, 2023.
NEW CHAPTER TODAY
Actress Yulia Peresild leads in 'The Challenge' filmed on International Space Station, getting ahead of Tom Cruise in race for first movie shot in space.
Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman revealed in 2020 that they were working together on a movie to be filmed in space, with NASA’s cooperation. Their project is expected to be developed in collaboration with Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Reports suggested that Cruise’s stay on the space station could also occur in October 2021, but no definitive date for his launch has ever been shared.
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CNN published clips from "The Challenge" and also reported that two other projects were filmed aboard the ISS: a 2002 IMAX documentary narrated by Tom Cruise and a 2012 8-minute science fiction film (“Apogee of Fear”) by space tourist and game mogul Richard Garriott.
As far as I know there was more filming done on the International Space Station by the cosmonauts and space tourists flown there by Roscosmos space agency.
I viewed some when working for Studio City-based Films By JOVE producing a documentary compiled of such footage.
Often people behind it do not have astronomical funds for marketing to reach large audiences!
Had Tom Cruise flown to the ISS to shoot a movie, its budget could be $200 mln in the most optimistic projections of year 2020, he’d earn up to $60 million for his services as a producer/star. After the project set to make history as the first narrative feature shot in space didn’t work out, Universal announced back in October that Tom Cruise’s Space Movie will make him the First Civilian to Do a Spacewalk Outside of the Space Station. His character would be a down-on-his-luck guy who is the only person to save Earth.
$200 million budget would likely triple by late 2024 set up for production in Earth's orbit - but even that could do a lot for saving our planet’s environment!
Perhaps his project could serve some environmental needs in addition to its entertainment goals?
The “Challenge” film project involves some educational and scientific goals. Here’s lead actress Yulia Peresild demonstrating weightlessness aboard ISS to Russian school children as they watch and ask her questions directly on air
