A solitary astronaut grows concerned about his life back on Earth in Director Johan Renck’s sci-fi adventure drama, Spaceman.
Renck’s film tells the story of Jakub, an astronaut on a solo mission on the edge of the solar system. Six months in, he realizes that the marriage he left behind might not be waiting for him and desperate to fix things with his wife, he is helped by a mysterious creature from the beginning of time he finds hiding in the bowels of his ship.
On March 3, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Renck discussed the making of Spaceman during a Q&A moderated by Director Crystal Moselle (Skate Kitchen).
During the conversation, Renck spoke about how he made changes in the final version of the film that made it feel more immersive.
“The immersion aspect of it is my kind of route with anything I do film-wise because I like it to be experiential. I’m not so interested in making stuff in which you’re on the outside looking in on a diorama or something. I want as a viewer myself to participate in what’s going on. So, it’s always about how you think of the camera as an eye and what that eye means in terms of perceiving the film. To me it’s always an observational approach in which you think about the storytelling happening through your own eyes, you’re watching it with your eyes rather than through somebody else’s eyes.”
Renck’s other directorial credits include the feature film Downloading Nancy; and episodes of The Last Panthers, Bloodline, Halt and Catch Fire, Bates Motel, Vikings, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. He won both the Primetime Emmy and the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Limited Series for his 2019 mini-series, Chernobyl.
Renck has been a DGA member since 2002.