NHK feels effect of Upside’s Gravity

Japanese public broadcaster NHK has acquired Upside Distribution’s buzzy astronaut doc Ø Gravity, A Mission in Space.

The one-off film, distributed by Havas-owned Upside, was the most-screened at MIPDOC in Cannes last month where it had its world premiere.

Speaking to TBI from the Busan Contents Market in Korea last week, Upside sales manager Arianna Castoldi said the Japanese pubcaster had come in for the doc since MIPTV.

Elsewhere in Asia, distributor IPA has already taken it for Taiwan, and Castoldi said that several other deals are in the offing.

“It is a documentary about space, but has a lot of human insight – it is much more than a science film.”

The show follows two young astronauts as they train for their inaugural space mission, and then the mission itself. Astronaut Gerst Alexander and Hansen Juergen, the film’s director, were in Cannes to promote it.