posted 11-06-2020 03:51 PM               

Over twenty years ago rival nations put aside political and cultural differences and came together in a demonstration of international co-operation to create something unique – The International Space Station.

posted 08-23-2021 10:54 AM               

While the rest of us — the other 7.9 billion people here on Earth — are going about our daily lives, looking straight ahead, there are another six people living off our planet 250 miles above our heads. These are the men and women of the International Space Station, whose home is a spaceship, an outpost in the cosmos.

Drawing on breathtaking archive and interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, colleagues and family members, "The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station" brings together personal testimonies from the men and women who have been part of this extraordinary project — a remarkable achievement of technology, international collaboration, scientific endeavour and human bravery.

The International Space Station is completely unique — continuously occupied since November 2000, it is a triumph of engineering and cooperation and the largest peacetime international project in history. Assembled by space walkers flying around the earth at 17,500 miles per hour, the length of a football pitch, its solar arrays stretching out for more than an acre, the work of 15 nations over 20 years. But the film is not about the 450 tonnes of silver spaceship orbiting earth — "The Wonderful" is the story of the men and women who live inside it — their stories played out against the vast, beautiful, bottomless, darkness of the Universe.

For every astronaut who risks their life to go into space there is a chain of people who help them get there. From the family members saying goodbye through protective glass at the launch site, to the engineers, flight directors and dedicated teams at NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, and CSA — to the teachers who inspired them, to the pioneers of space exploration, to the pilot who taught a young Peggy Whitson to fly on her farm in Iowa. This is a story of human connection.

"The Wonderful" remains a constant reminder of mankind's vulnerability but also our ability to reach beyond the unimaginable, to life in space.

In a world of compromise and uncertainty the ISS is a triumph of engineering and cooperation. As an example of what man can achieve when we put aside our differences, it is more relevant now than ever.

"The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station" is a Dog Star Films production in association with Fisheye Films. Directed by Clare Lewins ("I Am Ali," "Kareem: Minority of One," "The Lost Tapes of Memphis") and produced by BAFTA and Emmy-nominee George Chignell ("Citizen K," "Searching for Sugar Man," "I Am Ali").

posted 09-17-2021 10:30 PM               

New film finds 'The Wonderful' aboard the space station: director Q&A

Clare Lewins did not think she was the right director for a film about the International Space Station.

Approached with the idea by producer George Chignell, who she worked with on the 2014 boxing legend documentary "I am Ali," Lewins' first reaction was that she was "not a science-based person," but then she began looking into who had lived on the space station.

"That's what made the difference, actually," she told collectSPACE in an interview.