24 April 2023

In this month’s series of movie nights, the Russian Embassy in South Africa screened the award-winning movie Solaris. Renowned Russian cosmonaut, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov attended the event and shared with the audience his personal experience about his time in space. He performed his spaceflight in 2020 and spent 185 days aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer for ISS Expedition 63/64.

Solaris, a science fiction drama, was aptly chosen for this month’s viewing as Cosmonautics day is celebrated on 12 April every year. It is cited as one of the greatest science fiction films in the history of cinema, a world-famous masterpiece of Soviet cinematography.

Solaris is based on the 1961 novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem and was co-written and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, widely considered one of the greatest and most influential directors. The 1972 film was Tarkovsky's attempt to bring greater emotional depth to science fiction films.

In introducing the film, Russian Ambassador to South Africa Mr Ilya Rogachev said that Andrei Tarkovsky’s films are more of a philosophical meditation than entertainment. While the film might seem like science fiction, it really is about humans. As Tarkovsky pointed out, his main goal was to show a man and the planet from a space perspective: “A man should remain a man, maintaining his dignity and choosing the spiritual over the material – this is what matters most.”

Solaris won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Palme d'Or.

Cosmonautics Day is observed annually on April 12 in Russia and other former Soviet Union nations. This holiday commemorates the first crewed space flight on April 12, 1961, with Russian Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on board. The Soviet Union thus became the first country to send a crewed flight to space, and Gagarin became the first human to orbit the planet. This elevated him to the status of a national hero as his country awarded him the title of ‘Hero of the Soviet Union.’ On April 9, 1962, the Soviet Union declared April 12 as Cosmonautics Day.

TDS