synopsis
Baikonur, home to the old Soviet Space Program, is still the place where astronauts begin their journey to the International Space Station.
Andrea Sorini’s remarkable documentary, all of whose images are spectacular in their formal rigour and compositional beauty, depicts the region's ruins and its exotic strangeness (cows inhabit a colourful modernist bus stop, camels roam the streets), as well as the ongoing use of the space centre and the launch of a manned rocket heading to the ISS.
More info at www.baikonur.earth
Far from the rest of the world, just one step away from the universe.
summary
Over the centuries only few caravans dared to cross the northern route of the silk road that today lies in the territory of Kazakhstan. In this portion of Asian desert there was no place to build a majestic city nor anything else worth fighting for. Until in 1955 the Soviet government realised that those lands, far as they may be from the rest of the World, were just one step away from the Universe.
Attraverso la steppa desertica del Kazakistan per raggiungere la città-cosmodromo di Bajkonur, da dove assisteremo ad uno spettacolo maestoso: il lancio di una Soyuz in missione verso la Stazione Spaziale Internazionale.
Questo documentario, a tratti sospeso e metafisico come una fotografia di Luigi Ghirri, ci conduce in un viaggio unico.