On the 13 September Sin Fin Cinema will unveil ‘The Cosmonaut’ (Riot Cinema Collective) at the Riverside Studios in London. The science fiction film, directed by Nicolás Alcalá, is being simultaneously released in cinemas, on VOD TV and online.
Filmed in English and with locations in Latvia, Russia and Spain, ‘The Cosmonaut’ has been possible thanks to a successful crowd-funding campaign which raised €400,000 through small and medium-sized donations from more than 4,500 people. A clear example that nothing is impossible. As the film-makers themselves admit on their website, people called them crazy, told them they were being unrealistic and that the project would never work. But it wasn’t enough to put them off and now ‘The Cosmonaut’ is a reality and one of the first projects in the world to offer a new business model in the audiovisual sphere thanks to the Creative Commons and Internet licences.
What is more, with this new approach they have not only made the film that is their focal point; they have also created a composite narrative told from different perspectives and through different media: text, mobile phones, photographs, sounds and images, circling around the central story. As well as the film, the project comprises thirty-two web-episodes, a book, a hoax documentary, a stack of behind-the-scenes videos and a secret bulletin.
‘The Cosmonaut’ is an example of the power of the Internet and of social networking sites in the diffusion of new media; it is also a paragon of creativity and well-executed work in a sector that is perhaps in need of a bit of stimulation – stimulation like the success of ‘The Cosmonaut’, which creates confidence in the new methods of financing and distribution that the twenty-first century can offer.
‘The Cosmonaut’ is set in the former Soviet Union during the space-race era and centres on a supposed voyage to the moon. It begins in 1967 with the arrival of Stas and Andrei in the recently built Star City, where the first cosmonauts are training to go into space and where a race against the clock is on to beat the Americans into space. It is a plot thick with political intrigue, power struggles and the successes and failures of the majestic Soviet Union in the midst of some of the biggest achievements of the twentieth century.
Now the film is showing in London as part of a programme of events that offers the full Cosmonaut experience: it comes preceded by Rafa Pavón’s short film ‘The Hummingbird’ followed by a Question and Answer session with the team and a Cosmoparty complete with cosmococktails!
Don’t miss out! Brit Es will be there post-party to report on the cosmo-experience!
SIN FIN CINEMA presents: THE COSMONAUT + Q&A + COSMOPARTY
13 September
Riverside Studios, London
6.45-7pm: Short feature THE HUMMINGBIRD. Dir: Rafa Pavón, Spain and UK | 17min | 2013
7-8.30pm: Film THE COSMONAUT.Dir: Nicolás Alcalá, Spain | 79min | 2013
8.30-9pm: Talk with Riot Cinema and the actors
9-12am: COSMOPARTY with a COSMONAUTIC COCKTAIL!
All information on the event and ticket sales can be found on the Sin Fin Cinema website:
www.sinfincinema.com/portfolio/the-cosmonaut-qa-cosmoparty/
Project website: www.elcosmonauta.es
[su_note note_color=”#eaeae9″]Translated by Freya Willetts[/su_note]