State of Weightlessness

Drygas, M. (Director). (2026). State of Weightlessness: The Human Toll of the Soviet Space Race. EPF Media. 60 mins. State of Weightlessness is a documentary that explores the experiences of Soviet Cosmonauts, evaluating the effect of the program on them as human beings. The style is a classic documentary, alternating between interviews, voiceover interviews with footage of space operations, and actual recordings of cosmonauts speaking with their family members or mission control. There is no narrator, so the voices of the people involved are centered, but there is some stylization through music backing in parts of the film. The film has an arc to it, mirroring the emotional journey of the cosmonauts through their careers. It opens with expressions of excitement and wonder about space travel and their motivations for being there, and then gradually changes the tone towards the toll the program took on them. There is a lot of footage of daily life in space, including showering, experimentation (specifically on themselves), so blood draws, exercise, and taking readings with equipment. There is also a lot of video from the preparatory experiments for the program, and this is where things get darker. There are several shots of animal experimentation, including some harrowing live surgery and animals clearly in distress; there are also accounts from human experiments that are very disturbing, and some of the documentary focuses on the mental and physical toll that broke many people. Footage from disasters, including failed CPR attempts on fallen cosmonauts from a failed landing, and funeral footage drives home the cost of failures within the program as well. It is worth noting that State of Weightlessness does not present itself with a one-sided agenda. Many of the living cosmonauts, including ones who had harsh experiences, spoke at the end with pride about their time in space and said it was something they would do again and that, on balance, they were happy about. This lends more power to the overall point of the film, which is to explore (for good and for ill) the human toll of the Soviet space program. There is a lot of potential for educational purposes here. The 60 minute runtime opens this film up to use within a class period, especially if only a portion is shown. In terms of disciplines, there are a bevy of applications, including in Astronomy, Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, Russian Languages/Culture, and History, to name just a few. Overall, this would be an excellent addition to a College class, and potentially has uses in upper level high school classes as well (with consideration for some of the disturbing material). This film has won many awards, including: Grand Prix — International Television Festival, Monte Carlo First Prize — International Film Festival Strasbourg, France Grand Prix and Press Award — Ismailia Festival For Documentary And Short Films, Egypt Special Commendation — Prix Europa '95 — European Broadcast/Documentary Festival Mention A — Prix Italia '94 — RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana Grand Prix — "Man under Threat" Lódź Media Festival, Poland First Prize — Balticum Film and Television Festival, Denmark