Russia announces plans to make the first film shot in space on the International Space Station

A Russian actress and director are travelling to the International Space Station in a bid to make the first film shot in space.

Russian space agency Roscosmos announced on Thursday that actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko would take off from Baikonur cosmodrome on 5 October.

Co-produced by Roscosmos and Russia’s Channel One, the movie will be called Challenge. According to Russia’s RIA news agency, it will star Peresild as a surgeon operating on an ill cosmonaut.

Peresild and Shipenko are set to begin space flight training, including zero-gravity flights and parachute training, on 1 June.

The announcement follows last year’s news that NASA, Tom Cruise, and Elon Musk’s company SpaceX were also planning to make a film aboard the space station. Roscosmos’ announcement has triggered speculation that Russia could now be in a cinema space race with the United States.