A Film by Elsa Kremser & Levin Peter
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SPACEA FILM BY ELSA KREMSER & LEVIN PETER DOGS A production of RAUMZEITFILM in coproduction with IT WORKS SPACE DOGS A FILM BY ELSA KREMSER AND LEVIN PETER Narrated by ALEXEY SEREBRYAKOV Produced, written & directed by ELSA KREMSER & LEVIN PETER Coproducer ANNEKATRIN HENDEL Director of Photography YUNUS ROY IMER Sound SIMON PETER, JONATHAN SCHORR Editors JAN SOLDAT, STEPHAN BECHINGER Sound Design JONATHAN SCHORR Original Score PARADOX PARADISE 91 Min - 1:2,39 - Color & B/W - 2K - Dolby 5.1 - Austria, Germany - 2019 OV in Russian - available with English / German / French / Italian / Spanish / Portuguese subtitles Photos and PressKit downloadable on www.spacedogsfilm.com International Press Austrian Press World Sales Production Coproduction Gloria Zerbinati Ines Kaizik-Kratzmüller Deckert Distribution Raumzeitfilm Produktion It Works Medien +33 7 86 80 02 82 +43 699 12 64 13 47 +49 341 21 56 638 +43 660 69 94 493 +49 30 44 67 67 01 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] “The dog, bearer of secrets who leaps easily over the dark abysses of time, because for him there is no difference between the fifteenth and the twentieth centuries, knows many things better than we. His left (domesticated) eye looks straight at us; the right (untamed) eye has just a shade less light, seems remote and strange. And yet, we feel, it is precisely this eye in shadow which can see right through us.” W.G. Sebald LOGLINE How a Moscow street dog was send into space and returned as a ghost. SYNOPSIS Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. According to a legend, she returned to Earth as a ghost and has roamed the streets of Moscow ever since. Following her trace, and filmed from a dog’s perspective, ‚Space Dogs‘ accompanies the adventures of her descendants: two street dogs living in today’s Moscow. Their story is one of intimate fellowship but also relentless brutality, and is interwoven with unseen archive material from the Soviet cosmic era. A magical tale of voyagers scouting for unknown spaces. „An enlightening cinematic essay „Space Dogs is a total work of art – PRESS that overtopped Locarnos ‚Cineasti a foreshadowing of a near future in QUOTES del presente‘ competition.“ which man is no longer the center of FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE (DE) the world, but rather a species among many others. Must-See!“ KINO-ZEIT (DE) „Undoubtedly the most exciting film in Locarno. A philosophical, deep „One of the most bizarre film that does what cinema has to do: documentaries ever made!“ showing unseen images.“ DMOVIES (UK) DEUTSCHLANDFUNK (DE) “Like a dog version of Grizzly Man. „As crazy as poetic – probably Brutal but also sensitive – a complex unforgettable. This is undoubtedly work that got under my skin.” one of the highlights of this FILM COMMENT PODCAST (US) Locarno Festival.” LE POLYESTER (FR) “A radical and rigorous film – one of the documentaries of the year.” „Nobody leaves this movie FILMIDEE (IT) unchanged!“ PUBLICO (PT) “The film succeeds in the miracle of creating a cosmic feeling in which we „Space Dogs is the most controversial title are all united, men and animals – a at the Locarno Film Festival. Like a real fairy remarkable film about life taken from tale this film makes your mind wander.” an angle never seen before.” CINEUROPA (EU) INTERNAZIONALE (IT) FESTIVALS Autumn 2019 Special Mention by Junior Jury and ISPEC Cultura Jury in the ‘Cineasti del Presente‘ competition LEIPZIG INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME 2019 2 0 1 9 It was a Moscow street dog that was the first animals on the streets are the ever-questing DIRECTOR‘S living being to orbit the Earth some millions of discoverers of unknown worlds. On their obscure years after our planet ‘s creation. And it is this nocturnal prowlings they encounter people who NOTE absurd moment in human history that moved are also strays and outcasts, stranded in the us from the very beginning. We knew that this ruins of time. Elsa Kremser & Levin Peter narrative had not yet reached its conclusion. July 2019 What happened when Laika‘s dead body burnt This film is about the relationship of another up on re-entering the Earth‘s atmosphere? species to us humans. A species that has been used in space history in two ways: both as an As we watched archive footage of a dog in experimental object and as a symbol of courage space looking into the camera for minutes, the and heroism. The dogs had to fulfil mankind‘s central question of the film arose: what do dogs dream by conquering the cosmos for them. Their see in us humans? This question finally led us to story became a fable, a nascent legend, of a today‘s Moscow, where we met Laika‘s possible bitterness that we chose to illustrate. descendants and continued their story through them. During the six months we spent with the ‚Space Dogs‘ is dedicated to these fables and dogs on the streets of Moscow, we often felt legends, to unknown worlds and to their observed and scrutinised by them. Little by little discoverers. we realised that we knew these animals only as part of our world; we didn‘t know ourselves as part of theirs. That‘s why we made street dogs the protagonists of our film. They take the place normally reserved in cinema for humans. We wanted to create a cinematic experience in which dogs lead us through the city. Telling their story means revealing the cracks of a city. The dogs dwell where human control fades, where the city decays and new spaces are created. So these Born 1985 in Wolfsberg/Austria, Elsa Kremser BIOGRAPHY studied Film at the University of Vienna and ELSA KREMSER the Filmakademie Ludwigsburg. As an author and producer, she realized several documen- Director, Author & taries that were shown worldwide. Her diplo- ma film ‚Nebel‘ premiered at the Berlinale. In Producer 2016 she founded the Vienna-based produc- tion company RAUMZEITFILM with Levin Peter. As a directing duo, they are currently working on their first fiction feature ‚The Green Parrot‘, which received the Berlinale Kompagnon Script Award. FILMOGRAPHY 2019 Space Dogs Born 1985 in Jena/Germany, Levin Peter studied BIOGRAPHY at the Filmakademie Ludwigsburg where he rea- LEVIN PETER lized several documentaries that were shown worldwide. His diploma film ‚Beyond the Snow- Director, Author & storm‘ won the German Upcoming Film Award Producer and was presented as a Guest at the Berlinale. In 2016 he founded the Vienna-based production company RAUMZEITFILM with Elsa Kremser. As a directing duo, they are currently working on their first fiction feature ‚The Green Parrot‘, which re- ceived the Berlinale Kompagnon Script Award. FILMOGRAPHY 2019 Space Dogs 2016 Beyond the Snowstorm 2016 For Whom I Might Die (short) 2012 A Promise 2010 Sonor (short) 2008 Prestes Maia (short) Alexey Serebryakov is ‚Space Dogs’ omniscient BIOGRAPHY narrator. His voice leads us through the film, ALEXEY SEREBRYAKOV vacillating between the style of scientific diaries and that of cosmic science fiction. Serebryakov Narrator was born in Moscow in 1964 and began his acting career at the age of twelve. Today he is one of Russia‘s best-known and most sought-after film actors. In 1990 he won the Golden Leopard in Locarno for his role in ‚Accidental Waltz‘, and he attracted international attention as the lead in Andrey Svyaginzev’s ‚Leviathan‘, which premie- red in the Cannes Competition and was nomina- ted for an Oscar. His filmography includes over 150 works. Since 2012 he has been living with his family and several former Moscow street dogs in Canada. FILMOGRAPHY (selection) 2019 Space Dogs 2019 Van Goghs 2018 McMafia (Serie) 2014 Leviathan 2007 Cargo 200 1990 Accidental Waltz 1988 Peace After War observing them, the idea of their soul be- The Russian off-text seems very poetic in INTERVIEW comes salient. We had the feeling there hadn‘t translation. Did you have a literary/textual by Karin Schiefer yet been a cinematic encounter with the life basis before you started to develop the cor- Austrian Film Comission of a dog‘s soul. We associated Laika with the responding images? idea that millions of years after the creation July 2019 of the Earth, the first living creature to circle L.P.: The text is based on research. We ma- the planet in a metal capsule was a Moscow naged to acquire notes, scientific publications street dog who had to create a new form of and also diaries by the scientists who worked One can read on the website of your produc- life between the wilderness and humans. We with the dogs back then. This additional level tion company RAUMZEITFILM: „We are hea- thought this was a great parable and took it found its way into the film at a relatively late ding for unconventional forms of cinema that as our approach. We wondered what had hap- stage and ultimately coloured everything due deal with the perception of space and time.” pened once she‘d circled the planet as a dead to the Soviet fashion of formulating scientific Was it, so to speak, a given that your first film body in a metal capsule for a hundred days thought. Some of the scientists‘ publications would involve the cosmos and its exploration? and the capsule had re-entered the Earth‘s at- read like fairy tales. We also met five eye wit- mosphere. We saw enormous potential for a nesses who‘d worked on the programme and Elsa Kremser: Not necessarily. The special re- story in this.