Moscow (AFP)

Bodies that float, cramped spaces, jargon of cosmonauts: the Russian team which shot the first film in history in space had to adapt to the realities discovered "up there", its director said on Tuesday.

Klim Chipenko and Russian actress Yulia Peressild returned to Earth on Sunday after spending 12 days aboard the International Space Station to shoot the first feature film in orbit and get ahead of a US competing project by Tom Cruise.

"The circumstances we discovered in orbit made us change the scenario," Chipenko said at the team's first press conference since returning to the blue planet.

"When you are on Earth, you imagine a scene between two characters facing each other. Now, up there, one of them is standing vertically and the other is upside down, and the camera is floating in its own dimension, ”he explained.

Russian actress Yulia Peressild at a press conference after returning from the ISS on October 19, 2021 at the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center in Star City, near Moscow Andrey SHELEPIN GAGARIN COSMONAUT TRAINING CENTER / AFP

Not even counting the tiny film set, "it was all a real challenge," added Chipenko, speaking from a cosmonaut readiness center near Moscow, where the crew are getting used to life on Earth again. .

The scenario of the feature film has also evolved thanks to the advice of Russian cosmonauts of the ISS who participated as extras and who adapted the dialogues "to make them more natural", according to the director.

"The guys discovered in them a talent of actor. I made them discover it", he assured, smiling.

"Up there, I understood that it would have been a different film if I had shot it on Earth. In orbit, space is in control," noted the director.

"Space films have to be shot in space," he concluded.

Russian director Klim Chipenko, back from the ISS, after the Soyuz MS-18 rocket landed on October 17, 2021 in Kazakhstan Handout Russian Space Agency Roscosmos / AFP

This Russian feature film, provisionally titled "The Challenge" and whose release date will be announced in early 2022, features a surgeon going aboard the ISS to save the life of a cosmonaut.

"We shot everything we planned," Chipenko said.

The team recorded nearly 30 hours of footage, which will be reduced to around half an hour of film.

Yulia Peressild and Klim Chipenko said they were impressed by the warm atmosphere aboard the ISS, where Western, Russian and Japanese astronauts are currently working.

In orbit, "there is no country, it's a big international family", summarized the actress.

She also said she had to secure all of her things, including lipstick and mascara, with adhesive tape.

Medical tools used for filming have often floated freely in weightlessness, according to Youlia Peressild.

"They are so small and fly away so fast," she said.

Image taken from a video released by NASA on October 5, 2021 of Russian actress Yulia Peresild (l), Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov (c) and Russian director Klim Chipenko entering the ISS Handout NASA / AFP / Archives

“Every second was a discovery,” enthuses the actress.

Youlia Peressild says she "really liked sleeping in space".

“I never thought it would be such a pleasure!” She says.

"But I missed coffee and tea."

© 2021 AFP