Taming of the Fire

The film tells of the early years of Soviet work in space. At its centre is an engineer called Andrei Bashkirtsev. The character is invented, but he follows the path of Sergei Korolev. The account begins in the nineteen twenties. The young engineer builds gliders first. Then he moves on to rocket tests. What Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote shows him the way. The work grows larger as the years pass. He then takes charge of the missile programme. The account reaches as far as 1961. That year the first manned flight was made. Real footage shot at Baikonur is used in the film as well. Kirill Lavrov and Ada Rohovtseva take the leads, with Andrei Popov and Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy also in the cast, in Daniil Khrabrovitsky’s Soviet film of 1972.