S7.E3 ∙ Sunflower

Space Tourists succeeds in surprising its audience with images and situations that have very little to do with the futuristic fantasy of 'space-tourism'. The filmmaker sets up encounters with the least likely people imaginable: places even stranger and more unknown than outer space itself. With extra-ordinary access and truly first-time images the film investigates the emotional oscillations of an expensive enterprise and questions the meaning and boundaries of the human spirit and our hunger for adventure and discovery.

After a year of studying at the Suvorov School, 13-year-old Vovka Kulikov returns to his native Siberian village. The boy learns that his father, the chairman of the collective farm, has gone to the front, and meanwhile problems are falling on the village: a gang of mysterious robbers is terrorizing local residents and endangering the timely harvest. Vovka decides to stand up for his family and friends and confronts the bandits.

19th century. A self-taught inventor nicknamed Levsha is recruited to help investigate a mechanical flea found in the chambers of Aleksandr III.

Abdee, the formerly enslaved Scottish nobleman living on the lush 18th century colonial Caribbean island of St. Joseph's, is framed for murder and forced to lead a new rebellion.

A remarkable imagining of the historic voyages of 16th-century explorer and writer Fernão Mendes Pinto, one of the first Europeans to sail to and travel the Orient-- India, Japan, and places in between. Choral renditions of Portuguese singer-songwriter Fausto's progressive 80's pop album "Por Este Rio Acima" add inspiration to a lush period drama.

A former white officer, and now an employee of the NKVD, martial arts master Viktor Spiridonov meets the disgraced Soviet intelligence agent Vasily Oshchepkov, who studied judo in Japan for a long time. They quickly find a common language, because both are obsessed with the idea of creating a national art of self-defense. But the joint work soon turns into an irreconcilable confrontation. Intrigues, betrayal, emotions will predetermine the tragic fate of the two great creators of sambo.