Who is Yulia Peresild? Russian actress and team blast off to film first outer space film

In a historic first, Russia launched actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko into space on Tuesday to make a full-length feature film in orbit. They are accompanied by veteran Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov

The team successfully blasted off to the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for a 12-day schedule. Yulia Peresild will be shooting a few segments of her upcoming film, The Challenge (Vyoz).

The official synopsis of the film reads:

“The Challenge is the story of a Russian doctor who's sent to the International Space Station to save the life of a cosmonaut.”

Reports claim that a backup crew is also on standby, which consists of cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, actress Alyona Mordovina and cameraman Alexei Dudin.

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Who is Yulia Peresild?

Yulia Peresild (Yuliya Sergeevna Peresild) is a renowned Russian actress who has done 30 films since the age of 19 and has been one of the leading actresses at the State Theater of Nations since 2007. She is best known for her roles in several TV shows and movies, including Kray (2010), In the Fog (2012), Land (2003), Nevesta (2006), Santa Lyuchiya (2012) and Battle for Sevastopol (2015).

She has won several awards for her on-screen performances. Yulia Peresild bagged the Best Actress award at the Beijing International Film Festival, the Golden Eagle Awards and the Seattle International Film Festival for her role in the film Battle for Sevastopol (Bitva za Sevastopol).

In her personal life, Yulia Peresild is the mother of two daughters, Anna and Maria.

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‘The Challenge’ beats Tom Cruise’s next venture

With The Challenge, Russia has beaten the US in making a feature film in space. If Yulia Peresild-starrer wouldn’t have blasted off into outer space for filming, then the first feature film to be shot there might have been Tom Cruise’s. The handsome hunk and Elon Musk’s upcoming $200 million action-adventure flick is reportedly going to be filmed with NASA and Space X. Doug Liman of 'The Bourne Identity' fame is set to helm the project.

Coming back to The Challenge, the film is a collaboration between Russian space agency Roscosmos, public broadcaster Channel One and Yellow, Black and White.

Speaking about The Challenge, director Shipenko said:

“We underwent an accelerated course of many important elements that the cosmonauts study over many years. We tried to master them in four months. Of course, this is very fast. We had a lot of theory, practice, endurance, sports – everything imaginable. It seems to me, this is a rather feasible task – naturally not to become a cosmonaut at the level of Anton and other professionals but to prepare as a participant of a space flight.”

The team underwent fast-tracked training to prepare themselves physically and mentally to be in outer space. Only time will tell whether Yulia Peresild’s flick will impress her fans or not.