Klim Shipenko

Shipenko was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. In 2002, he entered the California State University at Northridge (Film Production Department). He worked as an intern on the set of the film Something's Gotta Give by Nancy Meyers. He filmed the diploma film as a cameraman and studied at the Sal Dano Professional Actors Workshop.

In 2004, he returned to Moscow. For a short time, he worked on Channel One and was the director of the Plantain program about cars.

In 2006, Shipenko made his debut as a director with the short film White Night. In 2009, his first full-length work, Unforgiven, was released. The film was shown at the Kinotavr film festival. A year later, the director filmed the detective drama Who Am I?. His first movie about space, Salyut 7 (2017), is based on real events that took place in the 1980s on the Soviet space station of the same name.

In 2019, Shipenko directed the film Text based on the novel of the same name by Dmitry Glukhovsky. The film received wide attention due to an intimate scene featuring Ivan Yankovsky and Kristina Asmus. Glukhovsky said that, overall, he considered the adaptation to be very successful. Text received several awards, including winning in four categories at the Golden Eagle Awards.

Filming in outer space

In 2021, Shipenko shot portions of a science fiction film aboard the International Space Station. It is to be the second narrative feature-length fiction film shot (partially) in space (after Return from Orbit), and it is the first feature-length fiction film to be filmed in space by professional film-makers. The project is tentatively called The Challenge (2023 film), and was shot between the launch of Soyuz MS-19 and return of Soyuz MS-18. The first narrative film filmed fully (the narrative film Return from Orbit had some scenes filmed in space) in outer space was a short film titled Apogee of Fear, shot in 2008. The Challenge was in a race with Tom Cruise and Doug Liman to shoot the first narrative feature film in space. On the ISS Shipenko was in charge of camera, lighting, sound recording and makeup. The acting was done by actress Yulia Peresild. The filming equipment was launched at Progress MS-17 and returned on Soyuz MS-18. Pyotr Dubrov and Mark Vande Hei helped with filming.

• 2018 — The 16th Golden Eagle Award ceremony for the best feature film Salyut 7
• 2020 — The 18th Golden Eagle Award ceremony for the best feature film Text
• 2023 — State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art in 2022 (June 9, 2023) for the creation of the feature film The Challenge

As cinematographer

• The Challenge (2023)