A commission of medical and safety experts in Russia on 16th September approved a plan to shoot a full-length feature film in space. Titled The Challenge, it is the story of a female doctor who is launched on short notice to the International Space Station to save the life of a cosmonaut. The plan is to shoot the film, with just an actor and a director going into space, next month. If that happens on schedule, Russia would beat Hollywood to low-Earth orbit.
NASA last year announced plans by Tom Cruise to shoot a film on the ISS. Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, then announced its movie project in space. At a news conference in Moscow on 16th, Russian actress Yulia Peresild, director Klim Shipenko and their doubles — both have back-ups to take care of last-minute health problems — dwelt upon the new frontier in show business. They explained that they hoped to portray weightlessness as never before in fiction and, through the skills of a professional actor, the emotions of floating freely and seeing Earth from the heavens. Yulia, who will play a doctor in the film, briefed the media about her training on an airplane flight that briefly created a microgravity environment. She added that she would have to shoot with limitations — do her own make-up, and work without lighting or sound crews.
The actress and director will fly up and back in a Soyuz capsule and spend 10 days filming in the Russian segment of the space station. Just so that Hollywood does not beat Russia, the latter have shifted a schedule of missions to accommodate the film’s launch on October 5 this year. Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov will pilot the three-seat Soyuz spaceship. Three cosmonauts will play bit parts in the film.