Ready to film on Moon and Mars, says Russian director …

Days after the Russian director, actor duo returned from the International Space Station (ISS) after shooting the first film beyond Earth, director Klim Shipenko said that he was up for making a movie on the moon or even Mars. The Russian director stayed on the Space Station for 12 days shooting a sequence for the film titled "The Challenge".

The Russian director said that his 12-day-long stay on the flying outpost transformed his ideas about the possibilities of cinema. "We're ready. We believe space cinema should be filmed in space. If it's about the moon, let's go to the moon, if it's Mars, let's go to Mars. Why not? Why should cinema be filmed in a studio?" Shipenko told a news conference.

Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild returned to Earth on Sunday after gathering more than 30 hours of material for "The Challenge", billed as the first space movie and hailed by Russian media as a world-beating achievement. Shipenko said the crew aboard the ISS had joined in the filming, contributing their own "organic" dialogue, as well as holding him by the feet to stop him bumping into things.

According to reports, the film follows a doctor who flies to the ISS on short notice to give life-saving care to a cosmonaut. "Every second was a big discovery," said Peresild, who plays the doctor in the film. Before going for launch preparation, Yulia Peresild, who became the first actor in space, had said that for the first two seconds its scary, after that, its beautiful.

Yulia Peresild became first actor to shoot a film in space.

"Some scenes that I imagined one way on earth came together completely differently... People can be face to face (in space) but one of them is head up and the other is horizontal and the camera can be on a different plane, and that transforms your consciousness completely," Shipenko said in the news conference.

He added, "For me it was a cinematic discovery, to realise scenes in a completely different way in three or four planes." The work on the film will continue until the end of next year, and the space scenes would probably make up 25 to 35 minutes of the final cut. He said no date had been set for the release but there might be advance teasers from the space segment.

"The project will become clear evidence that space flights are gradually becoming available not only for professionals but also for an ever wider range of interested persons," the website of the film said. While the cost of the mission has not been disclosed, Shipenko said there was huge international interest. "I think if the film goes out at a world level it will pay for its budget, and the task of this film was to do that," he said.

Amid the glowing fanfare for American companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos Blue Origin, Russia has managed to squeeze the limelight while beating Nasa at being the first space agency to film in space.

Nasa had last year announced that it will work with Tom Cruise to film a sequence on the Space Station. "Nasa is excited to work with Tom Cruise on a film aboard the Space Station! We need popular media to inspire a new generation of engineers and scientists to make Nasas ambitious plans a reality," then Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine had said in 2020.

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Ready to film on Moon and Mars, says Russian director ...