Film Projection on the Moon

Further Info

Real Institute premieres previously unseen footage of the Voskhod 2 space mission by attempting to project directly on to the dark side of the moon on 27 January 2003.

The previously lost film, thought to have been secretly shot by Pavel I. Belyayev during the 1965 Voskhod 2 expedition, will be 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 Agencyand 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.

Pavel I. Belyayev, amateur filmmaker and co- cosmonaut on the Voskhod 2 mission, never denied or confirmed his part in the films. Neither did he comment on their
rumoured content showing Belayev and fellow cosmonaut Alexei A. Leonov in an isolated forest fending off hungry wolves, having had to land the space-capsule manually following an autopilot failure, and missing their planned landing zone.
Alexei A. Leonov had, the previous day, become the first human to ‘walk’ in space.

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 attempt to be the first to reach the moon with celuloid light, Real Institute utilises customised Super 8 projection equipment with patented ‘LunaBoost2’ technology. Developed in partnership with Nanjing University, China,  ‘LunaBoost2’ uniquely allows Super 8 film projection to cross the 384,400 km required to reach the moon’s surface.

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 of the knitted puppets’ mouldy demise in a Kentish potting shed.