Film Projection on the Moon

27 January 2003

Real Institute premieres previously unseen footage by projecting directly on to the dark side of the moon on 27 January 2003.

The film, thought to have been secretly shot by Pavel I. Belyayev during the 1965 Voskhod 2 expedition, is screened by Real Institute as part of ‘Wales Cinema Day’.

Existence of this Super 8 footage have been repeatedly denied by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and the Military Space Forces (heirs to the Soviet space programme). Reports that copies were held by Stanley Kubrick (director of 2001: A Space Odyssey) were never confirmed during his lifetime.

Belyayev, amateur filmmaker and cosmonaut on the Voskhod 2 mission, never denied nor confirmed his part in the films. Neither did he comment on their content - rumoured to be acutely embarrassing to the Soviet authorities.

In association with ‘The Kazakhstan League for Historical Rectification’, Real Institute premieres this footage for the first time in the solar system.

For this unprecedented event, Real Institute utilises specially customised Super 8 projection equipment in its attempt to be the first to reach the moon’s surface with celluloid light.

Also screened in this evening of astronomical entertainment is a classic episode of 1980’s cult tv series ‘Button Moon’, plus ‘The Clangers - a Welsh Tragedy’ a new documentary on the knitted puppets’ mouldy demise in a Kentish potting shed.

Regulars to Real Institute film nights are reminded not to attend this event at Memorial Hall, Betws-y-Coed but to check out the moon instead.

Skies open at 7pm, films commence 7.45pm.