The first fiction feature film shot in space was released in theaters in Russia on Thursday April 20, with a particularly evocative title in the context of Moscow's new space ambitions in the face of Washington: The Challenge (Vyzov in Russian). To shoot this film, which features a surgeon (actress Yulia Peressild), dispatched to the International Space Station (ISS) to operate on an injured cosmonaut, Russia sent an actress and a director into orbit in October 2021 for 12 days (Satellifacts, May 14, 2021).
The project, carried out at full speed to preempt a competing American initiative with Tom Cruise, has become an object of pride in Russia. The film is co-produced by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the television channel Pervy Kanal, whose director, Konstantin Ernst, does not hide his joy at having beaten Hollywood. “We are all fans of Gravity ”, released in 2013, Konstantin Ernst said Monday during a press conference. "But our Challenge shot in real weightlessness, today brings out the digital special effects" of the American film, he tackled. The sequences shot in the 230 m3 of the Russian module of the ISS and the participation of the three professional Russian cosmonauts stationed on board give an effect of authenticity to the film.
Director Klim Chipenko, who handled the camera, lighting and sound recording, recorded 30 hours of footage, 50 minutes of which were used in the final cut of this film, which cost " less than a billion rubles " (€11.1 million), according to Konstantin Ernst.