Sputnik (film)


Sputnik is a 2020 Russian science fiction horror film directed by Egor Abramenko in his feature directorial debut. It stars Oksana Akinshina as a young doctor who is recruited by the military to assess a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and returned to Earth with a dangerous organism living inside him. Alongside Akinshina, the film's cast includes Pyotr Fyodorov and Fyodor Bondarchuk.
Sputnik was scheduled to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2020 prior to the festival being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was released on video-on-demand in Russia on April 23, 2020.

Cast

for the film took place in Moscow in the winter of 2018–2019. Most of the film's scenes were shot at the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry.

Release

Sputnik was scheduled to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2020 before the festival was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sony Pictures had slated a theatrical release for the film in Russia on April 16, 2020, but the film was instead released on video-on-demand in Russia on the platforms More.tv, Wink and Ivi.ru on April 23. IFC Midnight acquired the film's North American distribution rights earlier that same month. The film is set to be released in select theaters and on video-on-demand in North America on August 14, 2020.
Upon release in Russia, over one million people streamed Sputnik on More.tv, Wink and Ivi.ru, making the film the most-streamed title across those services in two years, surpassing American titles and other Russian titles.

Reception

Pavel Voronkov of Gazeta.Ru called the film's story "charmingly uncomplicated", and wrote that, unlike "The Blackout by Egor Baranov, it does not hurt at all to watch." Dmitry Shepelyov of Igromania commended the film's visuals but lamented that "clichés become the main driving force of the story", concluding: "Tweak the script, write the characters better, add more bloody action, and Sputnik could be called an excellent fantasy thriller. But this is just a more or less competent B-category film."