An animated feature film called Star Dogs: Belka and Strelka was released on March 18th to mark the 50th anniversary of the first space flight featuring dogs.
The film is made by two directors Inna Evlannikova and Stanislav Ushakov. "We wanted to tell children about the space era and people's expectations in the 1950s when the country was reviving after WW2 and began to dream of space. When Belka and Strelka spent a day in space aboard a Sputnik in 1960, human space flight seemed more real, Inna Evlannikova says:
"The atmosphere was nice and romantic as if everything bad was over and the whole world was before us".
Film directors thoroughly restored the atmosphere of that time and all scenery and props were discussed with consultants.
The story of Star dogs is told by Fluffy- Strelka's pup which was presented to President John F. Kennedy's daughter Caroline by Nikita Khrushchev and is now living in the US. It tells that neither Belka nor Strelka who were usual street dogs didn't dream of fame and were taken for the experiments accidentally. They were joined by a rat called Venya. This funny creature was invented to make the movie more vivid. The team had long training and then finally went into space orbit.
Belka and Strelka's space odyssey is in 3D. Russian movie makers call it our response to Disney. Foreign cinemamen are interested in the movie, thus the star dogs' story will be soon known in other countries.
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