Documentary Looks at Ansari’s Space Tourism Flight

Filmmaking, Sumo and Space Tourism Take Flight at IDFA
indieWIRE

Swiss director Christian Frei also had huge bureaucratic hurdles to deal with for his look at the rising number of space tourists who pay millions for the chance to reach orbit via the Russian space agency. Frei takes his camera to remote Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union built its “Star City,” a secretive but once proud town that was the center of the USSR’s thriving space program where the first satellite, Sputnik, launched the space race back in the ‘50s.

Though the Russians still use the facilities, its a shell of its former glory when tens of thousands of people lived there and the nation looked with pride on its achievements. Gorbachev pulled the financial plug in the ‘80s. To help defray the costs, the Russian space agency has taken on “space tourists” to accompany their cosmonauts on their missions.

“Everything was difficult with this project, nothing seemed possible at the beginning,” said Frei after a screening of his film in Amsterdam’s lovely Tuschinski Theater. “The Russian secret service wanted me off the project, and they never let me film the way I wanted.” Though he originally wanted to profile a Japanese space tourist, he later settled on Iranian-American Anousheh Ansari who had dreamed of going to space as a little girl living in Tehran. She paid $20 million for the chance to go into space, half the cost the Russian space agency incurrs for a launch. “What is the price of a dream?” asked Ansari in the film addressing criticism that the money was a lavish expenditure. “One month’s salary? Two months? If I could go into space but not come back, I would still do it. It’s my life’s dream.”

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Official Film Site