Topic: Director Veit Helmer's "Baikonur" (feature film)
Tonyq Member
Posts: 199 From: UK Registered: Jul 2004
posted 06-27-2011 08:27 AM
A feature film set in the heart of the current Russian space programme and filmed largely in legendary locations across Russia and Kazakhstan is due for a cinema release in summer 2011.
'Baikonur' directed by German film-maker Veit Helmer, is variously described as a romance, comedy and adventure story. The plot focuses on a young Frenchwoman, Julie Mahe (Marie de Villepin), whose ambition to fly in space is realised when she is launched on a Russian Soyuz mission to the International Space Station as a ‘space tourist’. Julie’s mission is watched on TV by a Kazakh young peasant villager (Alexander Asochakov) who makes a living scavenging and selling fallen and discarded rocket parts.
The movie was shot between September and November 2010 at locations including the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Star City near Moscow, and on the Kazakh Steppe. Helmer secured authorisations from various Russian agencies for his actors to use genuine cosmonaut training equipment at Star City, including the centrifuge, Soyuz and ISS simulators and the giant tanks used for EVA training.
There is an initial trailer for the German version:
According to the film's website, Russian and English language versions will follow.
Philip Member
Posts: 5952 From: Brussels, Belgium Registered: Jan 2001
posted 08-17-2011 05:24 AM
New feature film by German director Veit Helmer set in the heart of the current Russian manned space program about the training of a female cosmonaut. The young French woman got a seat onboard a Soyuz mission and after her mission falls outside the usual recovery area...
Editor's note: Threads merged.
Tonyq Member
Posts: 199 From: UK Registered: Jul 2004
posted 08-17-2011 04:32 PM
Thank Phillip for 'bumping' this thread. I suspect that you picked this interesting movie up from my article in the current issue of Spaceflight.
I was fortunate to talk to the lovely Mlle. de Villepin about her role in this movie, during which she did all her own 'stunts'. This included diving in the neutral buoyancy facility at Star City, several zero G flights in the ESA A300, and spending several hours locked in the Soyuz simulator while wearing a Sokol spacesuit.
Baikonur opens, initially in Germany, on 1st September.
Here are a couple of images which were supplied to me in connection with the 'Spaceflight' piece.
Philip Member
Posts: 5952 From: Brussels, Belgium Registered: Jan 2001
posted 08-18-2011 02:40 AM
Indeed, great to know they could use a Progress launch vehicle to film the "entrance" to the Soyuz capsule
eurospace Member
Posts: 2610 From: Brussels, Belgium Registered: Dec 2000
posted 08-18-2011 09:10 AM
Movie theatres at Berlin already distributed flyers for this movie when I was there in late July.
spacekiwi New Member
Posts: From: Registered:
posted 12-09-2011 09:55 AM
Any ideas when we might see it in the US?
Tonyq Member
Posts: 199 From: UK Registered: Jul 2004
posted 12-31-2011 12:02 PM
quote:Originally posted by spacekiwi: Any ideas when we might see it in the US?
posted 06-27-2011 08:27 AM
advertisement