First Full Trailer for Russian Film ‘The Challenge’ Shot For Real in Space
by Alex Billington
January 2, 2023
Source: YouTube
They really went and did it!! Crazy. Central Partnership has unveiled an official trailer for a Russian space movie called The Challenge (in English), made by filmmaker Klim Shipenko. This is the very first film to ever actually shoot in space for real. They’ve been talking about this for years, a Hollywood pipedream that Russian pulled off first (similar to the space race in the 50s/60s). Tom Cruise still has his own project in space in the works. This Russian director and his lead actress flew up to space in October 2021, and filmed for a few weeks. The story follows a female surgeon who has to perform an operation on a cosmonaut too ill to return to Earth. There will only be about 30-40 minutes of actual space footage in the film, the rest was shot (on ground) in studios and at real locations. Вызов stars Yulia Peresild, Miloš Biković, Vladimir Mashkov, Alyona Mordovina, Tatyana Dogileva, and Sergey Burunov. Yes – this is technically some Russian propaganda, but it’s worth a look just for the spectacle of the very first movie ever filmed in space.
Here’s the first official Russian trailer (+ poster) for Klim Shipenko’s The Challenge, from YouTube:
Cosmonaut Ivanov loses consciousness while the spacecraft is in flight. Doctors decide it will be necessary to perform heart surgery in zero gravity. Cardiac surgeon Zhenya Belyaeva (Yulia Peresild), who does not have time to raise her three-year-old daughter, is preparing for the flight. The Challenge, originally known as Vyzov or Вызов in Russian, is directed by Russian filmmaker Klim Shipenko, director of the films The Nerd’s Confession, Salyut-7, Text, Son of a Rich, and a few other features previously. The screenplay is written by Bakur Bakuradze, Ilya Malakhova, Klim Shipenko, and Ivan Zamorov. The production filmed on the International Space Station (ISS) from October 5th – 17th, 2021. Of all the footage filmed in space, about 30% was filmed in the Nauka module, another third was filmed in the Zvezda module, and the remaining 30% was shot on the rest of ISS modules. The Challenge is scheduled to open in Russia starting in April 2023 this spring. There’s no other international release dates yet – stay tuned. Anyone really want to see it?
