Directed by Richard Viktorov • 1981 • USSR/Russia

Richard Viktorov’s newly restored cult classic is one of the most striking Soviet sci-fi features. Scripted by the beloved author Kir Bulychyov, Per Aspera Ad Astra blends childlike wonder at the cosmos with the cynicism of the Brezhnev era. Elena Metyolkina is iconic as Niya, a beautiful cyborg who request’s Earth’s help to salvage her home planet of Dessa, which has been wracked by environmental disaster later revealed to be the work of rapacious human colonists. This idiosyncratic genre piece ponders both human and non-human life, probing mankind’s capacity to traverse the stars but also its destructive potential, with the scenes of devastation on Dessa recalling Soviet environmental disasters in Chernobyl and the Aral Sea.

PER ASPERA AD ASTRA • ЧЕРЕЗ ТЕРНИИ К ЗВЁЗДАМ
Directed by Richard Viktorov
Written by Richard Viktorov and Kir Bulychyov
Cinematography by Aleksandr Rybin
Music by Aleksei Rybnikov
Starring: Elena Metyolkina, Vadim Ledogorov, Elena Fadeeva

In Russian with English subtitles