While the rest of us – the other 7.9 billion people here on Earth – are going about our daily lives, looking straight ahead, there are another six people living off our planet 250 miles above our heads. These are the men and women of the International Space Station, whose home is a spaceship, an outpost in the cosmos.
Drawing on breathtaking archive and interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, colleagues, and family members, “The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station” brings together personal testimonies from the men and women who have been part of this extraordinary project – a remarkable achievement of technology, international collaboration, scientific endeavor, and human bravery.
The International Space Station is completely unique – continuously occupied since November 2000, it is a triumph of engineering and cooperation and the largest peacetime international project in history. Assembled by spacewalkers flying around the earth at 17,500 miles per hour, the length of a football pitch, its solar arrays stretching out for more than an acre, the work of 15 nations over 20 years. But the film is not about the 450 tons of silver spaceship orbiting the earth – “The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station” is the story of the men and women who live inside it – their stories played out against the vast, beautiful, bottomless, darkness of the Universe.
For every astronaut who risks their life to go into space, there is a chain of people who help them get there. From the family members saying goodbye through the protective glass at the launch site, to the engineers, flight directors, and dedicated teams at NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA, and CSA – to the teachers who inspired them, to the pioneers of space exploration, to the pilot who taught a young Peggy Whitson to fly on her farm in Iowa. This is a story of human connection.
“The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station” remains a constant reminder of mankind’s vulnerability but also our ability to reach beyond the unimaginable, to life in space.
In a world of compromise and uncertainty, the ISS is a triumph of engineering and cooperation. As an example of what man can achieve when we put aside our differences, it is more relevant now than ever.
“The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station” is a Dog Star Films production in association with Fisheye Films. Directed by Clare Lewins (“I Am Ali,” “Kareem: Minority of One,” “The Lost Tapes of Memphis”) and produced by BAFTA and Emmy-nominee George Chignell (“Citizen K,” “Searching for Sugar Man,” “I Am Ali”).
“The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station” will open theatrically in New York and Los Angeles September 10th, and additional markets on September 17th, 2021. Available on digital download September 17th.
