Russian space film: "We were first"

 

Putin praises Russian space film: "We were first" 

Competed against Tom Cruise and Elon Musk  

Of: 

Lukas Jacobson 

Published: Less than 30 min ago  

NEWS  

A new Russian film is praised by Putin, even though the president has not seen it.  

"The Challenger" premiered in cinemas on Thursday - and it was filmed in space. 

- We are the first to record a film in outer space, says the Russian president.  

Russia likes to boast about its pioneering in space. In 1957, the Soviet Union was the first to send a live animal, the dog Laika, into orbit with the spacecraft Sputnik 2.  

In 1961, they straightened their backs again, when the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in outer space.  

Time after time, they have battled with the United States to conquer space. The United States, for its part, was the first with a man on the moon in 1969. But now Russia is first again, and this time it was the Hollywood stars they fought with.

Vladimir Putin. Photo: Gavriil Grigorov / AP 

Putin's tribute  

- We are the first to record a film in outer space, on board a spacecraft. Once again, we are first, says Russian President Vladimir Putin as the film premiered in cinemas for the Russian people on Thursday, reports AFP.  

Despite his accolades, Putin reportedly hasn't even seen the film yet. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells the Russian news agency Tass that the president "has plans to see it in the future." 

Image from one of the scenes shot in space. Photo: Youtube  

The fight against Musk and Cruise  

Three years ago, in 2020, Hollywood star Tom Cruise announced that he would make a film shot in space together with Nasa and Elon Musk's space company SpaceX.  

That caused Putin to hang up. Just a year after Cruise's film announcement, the Russian space agency Roscosmos sent an actor and a director up to the International Space Station. There they had twelve days to record the film "The Challenge", translated into Swedish: Utmaningen.  

They brought 30 hours of material with them, of which 50 minutes were used.  

The entire film is 164 minutes long. Challenger is about a surgeon, played by Yulia Peresild, 38. She goes to the ISS to save a cosmonaut injured during a spacewalk.

"Russia is always one step ahead"  

Several people agree with Putin about the film. Russian factory worker Tatyana Kulikova, 45, praises the premiere. 

- We are Russia, we are always one step ahead, she tells AFP.  

Russia's largest television channel, state-owned Pervy Kanal, was involved and collaborated in the film. The channel's head Konstantin Ernst sends a light-hearted taunt to Hollywood. 

- We liked the movie Gravity. But our film The Challenger is filmed in actual weightlessness and it clearly shows that Gravity only had computer-animated technology.  

Shooting a film in space was also cheaper than shooting using computer-animated technology, Ernst claims.  

He states that less than one billion rubles were used - the equivalent of approximately SEK 125 million. Unlike Gravity, which had a budget of around SEK 1 billion. However, the official budget for the film has not been revealed.  

Tom Cruise's space film has a production budget of SEK 1.7 billion, writes TT.