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First-ever feature film shot in space goes into wide release

Russian Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova announced that the movie would be screened at cinemas in 20 countries, including Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia

Shot from the film "The Challenge" Central Partnership

Shot from the film "The Challenge"

© Central Partnership

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. Klim Shipenko’s space drama “The Challenge,” the first-ever feature film shot aboard the International Space Station (ISS), went into wide release on Thursday.

On October 5, 2021, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, film director Klim Shipenko and lead actress Yulia Peresild launched into space to board the International Space Station in order to shoot the motion picture. The film tells the story of thoracic surgeon Zhenya (played by Peresild), who has just one month to prepare for a space flight to the ISS to save a cosmonaut's life. His chances of returning to Earth alive will depend on the outcome of a highly complex surgical operation that she will have to perform under conditions of weightlessness.

“This is the first-ever movie shot in outer space, and that says it all. There were no set designs or computer graphics but it was all shot literally out in space, among the stars in the midst of eternity. For the first time in the history of filmmaking, the audience will see the real outer space as it is,” Channel One Director General and Producer Konstantin Ernst told TASS.

The movie is being released nationwide.

© Press service of Channel One

About the movie

“The Challenge” is a joint project between Russia’s Channel One, the Roscosmos state space corporation, its affiliate Glavkosmos, the Yellow, Black and White studio, and the START online cinema theater, and was implemented with support from the Cinema Fund. Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov also took part in the filmmaking process. On October 17, 2021, Novitsky, Peresild and Shipenko returned to Earth in the descent vehicle of the Yuri Gagarin (Soyuz MS-18) spacecraft. Shkaplerov and Dubrov returned from the ISS on March 30. The film also stars Milos Bikovic, Vladimir Mashkov, Alexander Baluyev, Elena Valyushkina, Alexander Samoilenko and others.

Russian Culture Minister Olga Lyubimova announced earlier that the movie would be screened at cinemas in 20 countries, including Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia. In addition, the movie will hit theaters in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Sudan on April 27.

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