Skip to content

Filmography

Sergei Krikalyov has appeared in (or inspired) some space-related documentary films. They are listed by year of appearance.

Out of the Present (1995)

Directed by Romanian-born film producer Andrei Ujica and filmed by Sergei and crewmate Anatolii Artsebarskii during their stay on Mir between 1991 and 1992. The movie was released in 1995. The movie is available on DVD, though I’ve never seen it released in Australia. Reveiws are generally favorable; below is a review from Wired magazine, 17 September, 1997:

Astronauts have always seemed so gloriously liberated. They succeed in escaping the gravity of the Earth, and, simultaneously, the gravitas of the political preoccupations in their homeland – even if politics is what propelled them into space.

Such was the achievement of Soviet cosmonauts sent on a routine mission to the space station Mir. While their extraterrestrial activities were methodical and predictable, back on Earth their countrymen were playing a funny trick on them. In the time it took Mir to whiz around the planet 47 times, there was a putsch in Moscow – Gorbachev was out, and Yeltsin was in. The cosmonauts blasted off from the Soviet Union and crash-landed in the Russian Republic.

Out of the Present is filmmaker Andrei Ujica’s spare but delightful documentary about this Mir mission. And though he couldn’t have anticipated his original subject would coincide with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ujica has adroitly managed to encompass both dramas, using elemental effects.

But what’s really marvellous about Out of the Present is the mission crew. They are so, well, human. True, cosmonauts Anatoly Artsebarskii and Sergei Krikalyov go about their business with admirable composure: even when the oxygen system fails in Artsebarskii’s suit, he mentions it as an afterthought. But we also glimpse the giddiness behind the scenes, as when Krikalyov and a new companion ride atop a metal canister as if it were a horse.

Yet for all his sanguinity, it was a long 10 months in space for Krikalyov. When a reporter asks the cosmonaut what he likes best about Earth from “up there,” Krikalyov replies, “Most of all, what we can’t see from up here: people.”

A few low-resolution screenshots: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Thanks to Wil, I was able to see the movie and can categorically state that it is excellent! :-)

Out of the Present DVD cover

Inside the Space Station (2000)

A Discovery Channel documentary. This describes the construction of the ISS but is almost entirely centered upon NASA, giving the impression that NASA are the only ones involved! (The other partners are barely mentioned.) As the documentary is intended for an American audience, I guess this is inevitable. Sergei is the only Russian cosmonaut who appears (but doesn’t speak) during scenes of the STS-88 mission.

  • CollectSPACE: Review of Inside the Space Station. “…wasn’t this DVD supposed to be about the International Space Station? The ISS is rarely mentioned, and again, when it is, it’s only for a brief few moments. Missing, for example, is the ISS from the Russian perspective, with their facilities and equipment.”
  • Discovery.com: International Space Station. Accompanying site.
  • IMDB

Super Structures of the World – International Space Station: Cities in Space (2000)

Another Discovery Channel documentary (which I can find no information on, except for a page at Amazon.com), virtually identical to Inside the Space Station, but produced for the Super Structures series. Sergei gets to speak one sentence: “I like this idea because when I come to live on the Station, actually coming for a relatively short mission, just visiting our future house, just preparing this house to live in.”

Screenshot of Sergei in Super Structures documentary

The Cosmonaut (2001)

A Norwegian/Danish short movie, The Cosmonaut, directed by Stefan Kaldbakken, first premiered at the 2001 Venice Film Festival. In this 15-minute short film, a cosmonaut is stranded on a long-duration Soyuz mission during the chaotic fall of Communism in 1991; he is literally forgotten in the confusion! “Stranded in his Soyuz capsule, unable to receive instructions or updates for his guidance system, his life support supplies dwindling, he finally attempts a manually-guided return to earth and dies in the attempt.” I made a big effort to see this movie at the 2002 Melbourne International Film Festival, and I enjoyed it very much! I wish it had been the main feature rather than the following movie I had to sit through. It was evidently based on all those (inaccurate) media stories of Sergei Krikalyov’s being “stranded” when his stay on Mir was extended.

Space Station 3-D (2002)

IMAX Space Station 3D - entering Destiny

Sergei (center) and the crew of STS-98 enter the new Destiny lab in February of 2001. (Kennedy Space Center IMAX gallery)

The much-hyped IMAX movie. I saw this twice in 2002 in the Melbourne IMAX theatre. I generally enjoyed it, and Tom Cruise’s narration was surprisingly enjoyable.

Good things about the movie (as seen on the IMAX screen):

  • Awesome scenes of space. You really feel as though you are there, soaring over the Earth with the intensely black void of space beyond.
  • A really nice synthesizer soundtrack! I wish it were available on CD.
  • Sergei!!!

Somewhat less-good things:

  • Bill Shepard talks too much!
  • Wish the movie could be longer! Due to the limitations of the IMAX format the documentaries are usually short (less than 1 hour).
  • Mawkish scenes such as Bill mail-ordering a Labrador puppy for his wife.
  • Occasional blatherings about the marvelous scientific discoveries supposedly going to be made on the ISS (we’re still waiting…).
  • The movie was, perhaps inevitably, somewhat NASA-centric (though less so than the Discovery Channel documentaries mentioned above – there were some scenes shot in Russia in SS3D).
  • The fisheye lens used in some scenes, which I dislike as it distorts the view.

Sergei’s words in SS3D:

When I came to the Zvezda for the first time, it looked familiar, as home, and that was a place where we stay and live and sleep. It has life support equipment, guidance and navigation, jets to control the Station, to move it around in space. We have several windows looking down. We have to exercise every day to stay fit, even after a relatively short flight you feel difference in your muscles. When we did this exercise near the window, every time we turn a pedal, we fly several kilometers, it’s more impressive to say, I ride the bike from Paris to China (?). Probably the nicest thing in sleep compartment is window. From space you don’t see any borders. You really don’t see where United States ends and Mexico starts. You feel yourself part of humankind – not just man from one country, one city.

Some comments about Sergei from the IMAX SS3-D website:

Taking Myers’ basic 3D filming techniques to heart, the astronauts and cosmonauts did everything possible to keep the camera moving by employing several techniques including one coined “human dollying,” where the crew member operating the camera would be pulled or pushed by another crew member…a human dolly effect. Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalyov of the Expedition-1 crew, who had previously spent a year in space prior to his Space Station stay, proves a master at moving around in zero-G. (Myers says watching Sergei is like “watching a ballet dancer – he’s absolute perfection in that medium.”)

Inside: Space Launch (2006)

A National Geographic pay-TV documentary about Greg Olsen’s flight to the ISS. Of pertinent interest is (of course!) the appearance of Sergei.

Nestled in the remote and desolate steppes of southern Kazakhstan, the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome is the oldest and largest space facility in the world. With 20 to 30 rocket launches annually, the stage is set for an unusual mission. American entrepreneur Greg Olsen has spent 20 million dollars to live out every stargazer’s dream. He will become the third private citizen on the planet to hop aboard the Soyuz rocket, and journey to outer space. After completing 500 hours of intensive cosmonaut training, including zero-g exercises, crisis drills, and launch simulators, Olsen joins two veteran astronauts on a mission to the International Space Station. Olsen turns his personal handy-cam on himself and records a daily diary while in orbit some 400 kilometers above the Earth. Throughout the training, launch, and re-entry procedures, cameras provide a rare peek inside a Russian space mission, gaining unprecedented access to the floor of mission control as well as the highly secure launch pad in Baikonur. Inside takes viewers out of this world and back again.

Cezy watched it and captured some screenshots (stored in my external photo album). (I don’t have pay-TV!) Below I have paraphrased his description.

Sergei appears in the second half of the documentary, after the docking of Soyuz TMA-7. The narrator notes that he is the most experienced spaceman alive. Greg Olsen says, “He is a great person, has a great sense of humour, is very modest, he is superskilled… he tried to make me feel comfortable.”

The Soyuz TMA-6 descent was rather more dramatic than planned. Before undocking, Sergei observed that pressure from the inside of the descent module decreased from 750 mmHg to 600 mmHg because of an unidentified leak in the spacecraft. Sergei created a better isolation, then they undocked from the ISS. But after about two and a half hours, when the Soyuz entered the atmosphere, the cabin pressure started to decrease again. In a short time about 12% of air leaked out. The crew had two choices, both risky: to boost cabin pressure with pure oxygen, which is very inflammable or they could trust the spacesuits. (See “Dangling strap to blame for scary space leak?” by James Oberg.)

After these events, the crew landed safely. Sergei and Greg Olsen were okay, but John Phillips was nearly unconscious and he was revived with smelling salts. A few days later, Sergei said publicly that the decrease of cabin pressure was a serious situation and they escaped by a hair’s breadth, and the risks were enormous. Before undocking from the International Space Station, Greg Olsen had great trust in his crew and in the Mission Control team (at TsUP). Also he said, “I knew that they working on it, I knew that they are on the contact with the ground and I knew…probably as the best pilot we can ever have is Sergei Krikalyov.” Also, in this documentary, they compared this situation with the fatal Soyuz 11 descent.

  1. Home
  2. Miscellaneous