Astronaut Alexander Gerst believes it is important to make Esa’s work known. It’s fitting that the space organization now features prominently in a children’s film.
If you ask children in Germany who are interested in space travel which space organization they know, they will probably get the following answer: the Americans’ NASA. That could change with “Wow! Message from Space”, an adventure film for families that can compete with international productions. The European agency Esa plays a central role in this – although not always a creditable one.
The starting point of the film is a junkyard, the counterpart to the high-tech world of professional astronomers. Eleven-year-old Dino (Felix Nölle) lives there and tries to build a space telescope out of all the old things. He receives support from Billie (Ava-Elizabeth Awe), who is the same age and who, like her mother, wants to become an astronaut one day. Together, the children actually manage to receive signals from aliens. You write to Esa – and are invited to the South American spaceport in Guyana.
Looking for aliens
There the two of them stir up a press conference about the upcoming, actually unmanned rocket launch. They play their recordings, but the adults don’t want to believe that they come from aliens. The film Esa is working in secret to find these aliens. The two children discover the secret plans and then accidentally get into the rocket and thus into space.
“Wow!” is only the second feature film by director Felix Binder, who previously primarily made series for television, such as “Club der Roten Ribbons”. The film appears mature, the entire production is complex and well thought out, and the story is told in a highly entertaining way. Even the comedy is right. When the children see the international space station ISS in the film, they say: “It looks like a toy,” to which an employee in the control center says: “It is, a huge one.”
The jury of the German Film and Media Assessment was thrilled that the young protagonists in the film are constantly acting characters, with “curiosity, drive, strength of character and detective instinct.” The whole thing is family fun, which the accompanying adults can also take something home with them, and gave the film the rating of “particularly valuable”.
During filming preparations, the filmmakers repeatedly sought advice from ESA and the German Aerospace Center DLR, for example when it came to the language used by astronauts, but also for the set construction of the ISS. “They helped us where we wanted to be realistic, and generously and certainly with some amusement they turned a blind eye to other places where imagination was more important to us,” said the director. For example, the control center, which is located in Guyana, was recreated in a former shopping center in Berlin. Esa also contributed video material, for example from the missile base.
Sometimes you almost get the impression that Esa has had a PR film made. But the initiative to use a realistic space agency instead of a fictional one came from the filmmakers. An Esa spokeswoman assured that no money was paid. In addition to months of advice, Esa only gave the production company small things, such as Esa logos as patches for jackets and sweaters, stickers, brochures. The request to film with a real astronaut was rejected for “scheduling reasons”.
Advertising for Esa
Esa boss Josef Aschbacher hadn’t seen the film shortly before its theatrical release, but was happy about the advertising for Esa. “It’s fun when Esa is present in a film like this,” he said in the dpa interview. “We know a lot of great films about space in which the NASA logo can be seen everywhere – and rightly so, because NASA does really great things. But seeing the Esa logo is also good. “
Esa astronaut Alexander Gerst emphasizes that it is even an obligation for Esa to communicate its own work – after all, it involves public money. “When I was on the space station, it was very important for me personally to not only take in and enjoy the view, but also to send pictures down,” Gerst also told dpa. “In the same way, we want to share Esa’s important experiments and other things with people. Because at the end of the day, we’re doing all this for the people on Earth, so that everyone’s lives are better.”
– Wow! Message from space, Germany 2023, 103 min., FSK from 0 requested, by Felix Binder, with Ava-Elizabeth Awe, Felix Nölle, Ronald Zehrfeld and others