Movie Name: Flight Crew (2016)
Director: Nikolai Lebedev
Producer: Nikita Mikhalkov, Leonid Vereshchagin, Anton Zlatopolskiy
Writter: Tikhon Kornev, Nikolai Kulikov
Star: Vladimir Mashkov, Danila Kozlovsky, Agne Grudita, Katerina Shpitza
Genre: Disaster
Release date: 20 Feb 2016 (Berlinale), 14 Apr 2016 (Moscow)
Country: Russia
Language: Russian
Story: Flight Crew (Russian: Экипаж, translit. Ekipazh) is an upcoming Russian disaster film produced by Russia-1 Channel set for release in 2016. Inspired by the 1979 Soviet film Air Crew, it was the second catastrophe film shot in the Russian Federation.
The film was shot in digital 3D IMAX camera and become the first Russian film shot using this equipment.
Talented young pilot Alexey Guchshin does not accept authority and acts in accordance with a personal code of honor. For failure to comply with an absurd order, he is prevented from flying military aircraft and only by a miracle does he get a chance to fly a passenger airliner. He has to start his flying career again: Alexey becomes the second pilot-trainee on the Tu-204SM under the guidance of an experienced crew commander, the pilot Leonid Zinchenko. Their work relationship was not easy.
During the flight to Southeast Asia, the crew receives a message about an earthquake on an island and decides to go to the epicenter of the disaster to give aid. On the brink of life and death, when the ground is slipping from under their feet, and around the fire and rescue just in the sky, Gushchin shows everything what he can do. But only by working together can the crew to perform the feat, and save the passengers.
Director Nikolai Lebedev wanted to make a film-catastrophe, but did not negotiated with potential producers, until Leonid Vereshchagin and Nikita Mikhalkov suggest to work on a remake for "Air Crew". The director started work by support from Alexander Mitta, who directed the soviet film of the same name in 1979. The movie received a support from Russian Government which funding the movie through the National Cinema Foundation.
Filming started on September 18, 2014 and wrapped on 10 February 2015. The filmings took place in Moscow, Moscow region and in the Crimean peninsula. In the peninsula they filmed on as the earthquake-prone island volcano in the Indian Ocean. The crew has shot the flight scences in two planes: The Tupolev Tu-204SM (RA-64151 board) and decommissioned Tupolev Tu-154 of Kosmos Airlines (RA-85796 board).
Danila Kozlovsky, Vladimir Mashkov and Agne Grudite who playing the pilots started to work long before filmings had begun, after receiving training in flight school at the helm ultramodern flight simulator.
The film was shot in digital 3D IMAX camera and become the second Russian film shot using this equipment after Stalingrad (2013) by Fedor Bondarchuk.