Space Tourists will have its Southeast Premiere at the 2010 Florida Film Festival in the non-competing International Features category. The 10-day Festival, which runs Friday, April 9 through Sunday, April 18, 2010 in the Orlando, Florida area, screens more than 150 independent films and typically attracts about 23,000 people each year.
Christian Frei Explores Private Space Travel
Swiss director Christian Frei obtains extraordinary access to people and places behind the scenes of the space tourism industry. Filming locations include Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, France, and the International Space Station. He includes footage of space tourists taste-testing food, undergoing survival training, and struggling to get into their space suits.
Particular attention is paid to space tourist, Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American businesswoman and engineer who describes her life-long dream of traveling into space. She reveals that she would willingly give her life for the chance to explore the stars, so handing over the $20 million seems like a bargain to her. Ansari also gives viewers a guided tour of the zero-gravity International Space Station where she washes her hair, navigates her way through the rooms, and demonstrates how the toilet functions.
Space Tourism May Endanger Locals
In addition to showing the training associated with the Russian Federal Space Agency space tourist program, the filmmaker explores the sociological elements of this relatively new business endeavor. Although in the United States, the high-profile space program launches near the ocean so that debris falls safely into the water, the rather secretive Kazakhstan launches are thousands of miles from water.
So when the spacecraft for these frequent moneymaking launches takes off and then separates, scrap metal collectors, farmers, and others go after these expensive pieces to sell, salvage, or recycle. Some of the falling pieces, however, cause significantly more trouble. They may fall on homes, businesses, animals, or people who live in the farmlands near the Space Agency. There’s also a concern about whether the spilled rocket fuel causes health problems.
Space Tourists: A Problem With the Journey
The ground (and space) covered in this unusual documentary make exciting subjects for a film. The problem for the viewer lies in what feels like a freefalling adventure through space and time. Frei jumps from location to location, person to person (there are two tourists, a photographer, and a space enthusiast), and back and forth through time. The individual pieces of this puzzle fascinate, but the completed puzzle lacks a cohesive structure, and with no clear thesis to prove or theory to explore, the viewer may ultimately feel a little spaced out after watching this disorienting doc.
- Space Tourists
- This documentary film explores the strengths and weaknesses of the Space Tourist program.
- Starring Anousheh Ansari, Jonas Bendiksen, Dumitru Popescu, Charles Simonyi
- Director: Christian Frei
- Run Time: 98 minutes
- Additional Information: In English, Russian, and Romanian with English subtitles. This film won the World Cinema Directing Award – Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
- 3/5 – Good
Related Articles About Science Documentaries:
Encounters at the End of the World – Werner Herzog directs this documentary about the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica.
Movie Review of the Documentary Blast! – Scientists launch a balloon equipped with a telescope into the upper atmosphere.
Plagues and Pleasures DVD Review – Filmmakers explore the residents in California’s Salton Sea community.
Leslie C. Halpern - Leslie C. Halpern, Romantic Films/Comedies Topic Editor, authored Passionate About Their Work, Reel Romance, & Dreams on Film.
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