Moscow (AFP)

"Enough sleep"!

Sixty years after Yuri Gagarin, the Russians again want to beat the Americans in a space race: this time, it is about being the first to shoot a fictional film in orbit and in zero gravity.

The mission was entrusted to actress Yulia Peressild, 36, and director Klim Chipenko, 38, who will take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with cosmonaut Anton Chkaplerov aboard a Soyuz rocket to join from October 5 to 17, 2021 the International Space Station (ISS).

The crew would thereby burn politeness to "Mission Impossible" star Tom Cruise, 58, and "Mr and Mrs Smith" director Doug Liman, 55.

The American protagonists, contacted by AFP, have not revealed anything about the schedule of their project, which should be done in cooperation with NASA and Space X, the company of billionaire Elon Musk.

Announced in September 2020, four months after the Hollywood project, the Russian film "Vyzov" ("The Challenge" or "The Call" in Russian) therefore aims to get ahead of the United States on one of their favorite fields.

"Enough slept! Let's become the heroes of the country!", Proclaims on social networks the actress Youlia Peressild, who describes herself as a "patriot but without emphasis".

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"We're going to win it, this new space race! Becoming the first is important, but being the best is even more so," said the young woman who wants the project to restore their stature to the conquerors. from space.

- 'Propaganda weapon' -

"Beautiful, athletic, intellectual, our cosmonauts must return to the cover of magazines!" She exclaims.

Among the producers is Dmitri Rogozine, the head of the Roscosmos space agency and former Deputy Prime Minister, famous for his anti-Western outings.

Another big name, Konstantin Ernst, boss of the Pervyi Kanal television channel and who for more than twenty years has been staging some of President Vladimir Putin's greatest moments: military parades, presidential investitures, ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Sochi.

Mr. Rogozin has publicized his ambitions in the Russian media.

"The cinema has always been a weapon of propaganda", he said in mid-June to the popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, while the two rivals of the Cold War see their relations deteriorate from year to year.

For Moscow, it is a question of finally scoring points, because in the field of satellite launches, manned flights or scientific missions, Russia is retreating, failing to innovate against a background of corruption.

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According to Dmitri Rogozine, Cruise and Liman had approached Roscosmos in early 2020 to shoot their film, but "political forces" that he does not identify pressured them to give up working with the Russian space agency.

"I understood after this story that the cosmos is politics," he told Komsomolskaya Pravda, "from there was born the idea that a Russian film had to be made.

The plot of the Russian feature film has not yet been revealed, but the press evokes the mission of a female doctor, sent urgently to the ISS to save an astronaut.

The budget is also a closely guarded secret.

The only point of reference: NASA was paying several tens of millions of dollars for a place aboard Soyuz.

Yulia Peressild will not say more, during a meeting with AFP at the Moscow Space Museum, after a training session at the famous Cosmonaut Training Center, where she has hardened since the end of May.

- 'Not a superheroine' -

Proud to have overcome the centrifuge, Yulia is also preparing for survival in a hostile environment and for landing.

The tiny size of the film set, the approximately 230m3 of the Russian section of the ISS, is an additional challenge for the director who will also handle the camera, lighting, sound recording and make-up.

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And "we will have to film in space things impossible to shoot on Earth," says the actress.

Born into the family of an icon painter, Yulia never dreamed of being a cosmonaut, unlike many young Soviet people.

And when she was selected among 3,000 candidates, she admits to having been "afraid".

"I am not a superheroine", says the young woman, affirming to draw her motivation among the severely disabled children whom she supports through her Galtchonok foundation.

These "children must believe in the impossible. To take a spoon in the hand is, for a handicapped person, a challenge in the same way as for me to go into space", summarizes the actress.

© 2021 AFP