Moscow-Cassiopeia

Moscow-Cassiopeia

Directed by	Richard Viktorov
Written by	Isai Kuznetsov Avenir Zak
Starring	Innokenty Smoktunovsky Vasili Merkuryev Lev Durov
Cinematography	Andrei Kirillov
Edited by	Olga Katusheva
Music by	Vladimir Chernyshev
Distributed by	Gorky Film Studio
Release date	1974 (1974)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	Soviet Union

Moscow-Cassiopeia (Russian: Москва — Кассиопея, romanized: Moskva-Kassiopeya) is a Soviet science fiction film directed by Richard Viktorov [ru] based on a script by Isai Kuznetsov and Avenir Zak [ru]. Followed by Teens in the Universe (second part, 1975).

The film was released in the Soviet cinema on September 23, 1974. Then it was held at the box office in Poland, Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia. The film was first showed on TV on November 7, 1976.

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Synopsis

From the depths of the universe Earth can hear the radio signals of intelligent beings from a planet of the star system Shedar in the Cassiopeia constellation. A project is set up, proposed by the young inventor Vitya Sereda, to send a spaceship to reach the planet - but the flight will last for decades, so the crew of the spaceship ЗАРЯ or Zarya (an acronym for Spaceship (zvezdolet) Annihilation Relativistic Nuclear (yaderny); (the word 'zarya' means "dawn" in Russian), is to be recruited from teenage students.

The project is all carefully thought out but student Fyodor Lobanov stows away aboard the starship and unwittingly causes it to transcend the speed of light and so reaching its target 27 years ahead of schedule...

Cast

Innokenty Smoktunovsky as S.S.E. (Special Service Executive)
Vasili Merkuryev as academician Blagovidov
Lev Durov as academician Filatov
Yuri Medvedev as academician Ogon-Duganovsky
Pyotr Merkuryev [ru] as academician Kurochkin

Spaceship ZARYa crew

Mikhail Yershov as Victor Sereda, spaceship commander
Aleksandr Grigoryev as Pavel Kozelkov
Vladimir Savin as Mikhail Kopanygin
Vladimir Basov Jr. as Feodor Lobanov
Olga Bityukova as Varvara Kuteishchikova
Nadezhda Ovcharova as Yulia Sorokina
Irina Popova as Katya Panfyorova

Other cast

Anatoly Adoskin
Natalya Fateyeva
Nikolai Figurovsky
Artyom Karapetyan
Valentina Kutsenko
Sergei Radchenko
Raisa Ryazanova
Nadezhda Semyontsova
Natalya Strizhenova
Anna Viktorova
Nikolai Viktorov
Mikhail Yanushkevich

Filming

Initially, there was a single script, without dividing into two films, but when the amount of footage exceeded the standard timekeeping of a Soviet film, permission was obtained from the Goskino USSR to shoot two: "Moscow — Cassiopeia" and "Teens in the Universe".^[1] This did not affect the filming schedule, and as a result in the second film in some episodes the characters look younger than in the first one.^[2]^[3] Cosmonaut Georgy Beregovoy was a consultant for the film.

The costumes for the heroes were made of metallized nylon, high boots were equipped with magnetic suction cups, and the astronauts had a "sense collector" on their chests that translated from any language of the Universe.^[4]

The weightlessness scene was shot in 4 stages with the participation of Valery Pavlotos, a design engineer at the Yalta Film Studio. The movements of each actor along their own trajectory made a strong impression on the jury of the X "UNIATEC" International competition.^[5]

Awards

Prize for the Best Film for Kids of the All-Union Film Festival, Baku, 1974
Special Prize of the International Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, Trieste, 1975
Special Prize of the Moscow International Film Festival (in the Children's films category), Moscow, 1975
Platero Prize of the International Film Festival of Children's and Youth Films, Gijón, 1975.
Diploma of the Technical Contest of the Films at the UNESCO UNIATEC [ru] congress, Moscow, 1976
Vasilyev Brothers State Prize of the RSFSR, 1977.