V2. Escape from Hell (2021)

Interesting facts

• Box office: RUB 309.8M
• Budget: RUB 625.3M
• Earned 0.5× its budget

V2. Escape from Hell is a 2021 Russian prison action thriller war biopic film directed by Timur Bekmambetov. The film stars Thure Riefenstein, Pavel Priluchny, Pavel Chinarev and Darya Zlatopolskaya. Based on a true story, portions of Soviet Mikhail Devyatayev's autobiography form the basis of a World War II film produced by Bazelevs Company. The film is the first large-scale vertical format film featuring dynamic aerial combat. Mikhail Devyatayev enrolled at the Soviet Air Forces to fight in the Great Patriotic War. In July 1944, while on a sortie for the 1st Ukrainian Front, his plane was shot down and he was captured by the Wehrmacht.

Production

The film is based on renowned Soviet Union fighter pilot Mikhail Devyatayev who managed to escape the most secret prison of the Nazis – Usedom, an island of the southern Balitc Sea. Devyatayev, the prisoner of war fled the Nazis through stealth and courage. The pilot brought along in the cargo of a hijacked aircraft, advanced ballistic designs of Hitler's "weapon of retaliation" – V-2 ballistic missiles and coordinates.

On February 13, 2020, it was announced that V2. Escape from Hell under the direction of Timur Bekmambetov was ready to go into production and become the first blockbuster film made entirely in portrait format. According to Quartz, the film heralds the age of vertically shot films. On March 18, 2020, Timur Bekmambetov was looking for remote filming methods during the crisis caused by the coronavirus in order not to stop production of the film.

Principal photography started in the pavilions of Lenfilm, Kronstadt, St.Petersburg (Siversky, a former military airfield) and Kazan in February 2020. Individual takes commenced with pilot actors inside the cockpits of Second World War fighter aircraft using military equipment. The film making tried to show rustic, crude, unrefined warfare such as a rusty aircraft.

The aerial battles were shot using technology from the video game online military simulator War Thunder by Gaijin Entertainment. Bekmambetov always had the incentive for gamer-pilots cinematography ever since a test flight in the past kindled his interest in computer flight simulators that he would regularly experiment with. The game studio became a liaison to the production crew who chose virtual photography for the aerial battles.

The film was the opener of the 2021 Moscow International Film Festival held on 22 April 2021. On 27 April 2021, a memorial of Mikhail Devyatayev was held in Kazan. The film is co-produced by Bazelevs and Voenfilm. MTS Media also co-produced the film, the first in their theatrical production catalogue from the network provider.

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