Space Dogs

Janis Rafa: "I find this film a very successful example of combining fictive elements with reality and history. What inspires me is how archival footage can have such a strong visual impact. You see how dogs have been used for experiments – it is fascinating to see how the human mind comes up with ways of using and controlling animal bodies in such traumatizing ways."

The film allows these images to be seen, but at the same time it has a strong poetry. It is not fully attached to the ground, to the real world."

Space Dogs

Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. According to a legend, she returned to Earth as a ghost and has roamed the streets of Moscow ever since. Following her trace,and filmed from a dog’s perspective, Space Dogs accompanies the adventures of her descendants: two street dogs living in today’s Moscow.

Their story is one of intimate fellowship but also relentless brutality, and is interwoven with unseen archive material from the Soviet cosmic era. A magical tale of voyagers scouting for unknown spaces.