Spring 1938. A UFO crashes in the North of Chile. A recent inquiry revealed that the object was actually a Soviet rocket. Using this discovery as a starting point, the film details the main stages of an ambitious space programme launched in the 1930s, whose goal was... the Moon. The succession of archive footage and contemporary interviews reveals a forgotten chapter in history. Pervye na lune is more than just a delightful hoax; it is also an ironic tribute to Soviet montage films and a balanced look at the process of producing heroes.

The result is stylish, sometimes very funny and ultimately affectionate toward its chosen subject. "The element of irony is very small, perhaps around 5 percent," Fedorchenko said in an interview this week. "The rest is something of an homage to the generation of our fathers or grandfathers, including their honesty, their genuine belief in an ideal."

Fedorchenko said that there was no single key to appreciating the film and that different viewers would react to it differently -- reaction to an early screening at the Star City space center outside Moscow was largely favorable, he said. But the director didn't endorse some of the terms that have been used to describe his work. "We didn't aim for mystification, but for a fantasy drama. Terms like 'postmodernism' and 'mockumentary' are not what we intended. Perhaps the genre is documentary fantasy," he said.

And secondly, does anyone know where to find an English, French, German, or Spanish subtitle file for the film? I've exhausted every avenue I can think of to find one.