Pushing the envelope to present an audience with an experience that's out of this world has always been central to the art of filmmaking and a Russian movie has taken that sentiment quite literally. Beating the American endeavor involving Tom Cruise to do the same, Russia's Klim Shipenko released the trailer for his movie 'The Challenge' on Sunday, parts of which were filmed aboard the International Space Station, becoming the first to ever do so.
This movie, the first ever to be filmed in space, is now on course to be released before the Hollywood project involving "Mission Impossible" star Tom Cruise together with NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX. 'The Challenge' was announced four months after the Tom Cruise project in 2020.
Russian actress, Yulia Peresild, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) with director Slim Shipenko on October 4 last year to begin a 12-day mission. The two took off from the Russia-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan.
The movie's plot centres around a female surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut. Three Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS are said to have cameo roles in the film.
Talking about the challenges she faced while filming the movie, Yulia Peresild said, "It was difficult psychologically, physically and emotionally... but I think when we reach our goal all the challenges won't seem so bad." Yulia Peresild was selected out of 3,000 applicants for the role.
"Not only do we need to make a film, we need to come back to Earth alive," Klim Shipenko had said before his journey to the ISS. "There is nobody to get advice from. There is not a single cameraman who could answer how to work with light from a porthole," he said at an online news conference. On top of directing, he also handled the cameras, lighting, sound and make-up.
Klim Shipenko and Yulia Peresild returned to Earth on October 17.
While Tom Cruise had hoped to become "the first civilian to do a spacewalk" outside of the International Space Station when he shot the action movie with director Doug Liman, the release dates for the Cruise space project, which reportedly carries a budget in the $200 million range, are yet to be announced.
(With inputs from AFP)
