Mira (2022 film)

Mira (2022 film)
Mira is a 2022 Russian science-fiction disaster film directed by Dmitry Kiselyov about family values and love for one's family and friends. It stars Veronika Ustimova and Anatoliy Beliy.
It was theatrically released on December 22, 2022. In Russia, the film was released on the night of December 18, 2022, as promoted by First channel.
Plot
15-year-old Valeria ‘Lera’ Arabova lives in Vladivostok with her mother Svetlana, stepfather Boris and 8-year-old half-brother Yegor. She suffers from pyrophobia after surviving a fire inside an elevator when she was younger, which led to her parents’s divorce. Her father, flight engineer Valery Arabov, member of space station Mira, uses satellite technology and artificial intelligence to monitor her, but both remain otherwise estranged.
Arabov’s team watches a meteor shower expected to appear above the Western Pacific and to be harmless, despite his colleague Igor Khripunov’s warnings on the possibility of changes in its size and trajectory, which occur at last minute, impacting the station as well as vast areas in Far East Russia, Korea, Japan, and Australasia. Lera witnesses the impact and narrowly escapes her building, running into her school friend Misha, when a blast separates them and causes her to be hit by a middle-aged couple on a van who attempt to escape the destruction and drive her to a hospital before crashing and abandoning the vehicle. As a nearby building collapses, Lera shelters inside a toy store, but is trapped by the debris.
Arabov regains consciousness to find that he is the sole survivor in the station, and assisted by Mira’s AI system, manages to restore the energy supply, locates Svetlana in a hospital and contacts Lera, whose cell phone is damaged; he connects to a baby monitor teddy bear next to her, which he instructs her to grab to remain communicated, while she is pulled out by a rescue team. He calls Svetlana, who is at the hospital with Boris hoping to find Yegor among his classmates, but Lera recalls having given him her binoculars and encouraged him the night before to skip classes and watch the meteor shower from a nearby building, where she heads now to rescue him. Arabov scans the building, which Mira warns to be too unstable, but unable to deter Lera, he guides her inside to rescue Yegor, and guides them along a safe path by connecting to traffic lights and other devices.
Lera and Yegor reach the shore, where helicopters are ferrying survivors to a safe area, when an explosion on an oil vessel occurs. She begs a soldier to take her brother on board a helicopter, from which Misha gets off and gives up his seat for Yegor to be carried off. Arabov calls Misha’s phone and informs Lera that all rescue activities will stop as further explosions will happen shortly in another vessel, which might destroy half the city, and urges them to escape, but Lera berates him and throws Misha’s phone. Misha agrees to help her and both take a boat and board the vessel. In the station, Mira’s system urges Arabov to crawl into the escape pod as they will enter Earth’s atmosphere soon, but he refuses and disconnects the AI voice system to regain connection with Lera, whom he guides towards the fire system valve. A fire blast knocks Misha unconscious, causing Lera to have a breakdown; Arabov comforts her and instructs her to put on the fireproof gear and activate the valve, which she manages to do while the station catches fire upon entering the atmosphere, killing Arabov. Lera and Misha are rescued and taken to the hospital, where she reunites with her family.
Cast
Veronika Ustimova as Valeria "Lera" Arabova
Anatoliy Beliy as Valery Arabov, an astronaut
Alexander Petrov as Egor, Valeria's younger brother
Yevgeny Yegorov as Misha, Valeria's friend
Darya Moroz as Svetlana, Valeria's mother
Maksim Lagashkin as Boris, Svetlana's second husband, and Valeria's stepfather
Kirill Zaytsev as Antonov, an astronaut, Arabov's commander
Igor Khripunov as Ryabinov, a colleague of Arabov and Antonov
Andrey Smolyakov as Fomin, a high-ranking officer of the Mission Control Center
Kristina Korbut as Olya
Marina Burtseva as Tanya
Production
The disaster film Mira was presented to Russia's Cinema Foundation in 2021 but did not receive the grant.
The film was directed by Dmitry Kiselyov, the main roles were given to Veronika Ustimova and Anatoliy Beliy. Mars Media Entertainment film company was responsible for the production of the film together with AMedia, with the support of Cinema Foundation.
A project with a budget of ₽540 million, the film received funding in the amount of 187 million rubles only once. In the summer of 2022, the production companies requested another ₽163 million from Cinema Foundation.
Filming
Saturated principal photography lasted from early August to early November 2021 in Moscow, the region of Moscow Oblast, and Vladivostok.
Post-production
The visual effects were handled by Main Road Post, who had previously worked on the films Attraction (2017 film) and Invasion (2020 film).
Release
Marketing
The first teaser trailer of Mira was released on October 24, 2022.
Theatrical
Mira premiered worldwide on December 22, 2022, by "Cinema Atmosphere" Film Distribution. In Russia, it premiered on December 18, 19:00 Moscow time in theaters (December 19 elsewhere in Russia).
Reception
The film received a generally positive reception from critics and audiences, with praise for the acting, special effects, and story, though some criticism was directed at the length of the film.
References
External links
2022 films
2020s Russian-language films
2020s disaster films
2020s science fiction adventure films
Russian disaster films
Russian science fiction adventure films
Russian children's adventure films
Russian coming-of-age films
Space adventure films
Films about astronauts
Films about father–daughter relationships
Films set in Vladivostok
Films shot in Moscow
Films shot in Moscow Oblast