Race to Mars

Race to Mars captures every exhilarating detail, from lift-off through touchdown on Mars to return to Earth, drawing viewers into the heart of this amazing journey. In the year 2030, the race to be the first to reach the Red Planet is on. China has stunned the world by leapfrogging over America's long-term plans and has landed a series of advanced rovers and robotic landers in their quest to make the most important discovery in history - extraterrestrial life on Mars. Once again, America and its partners, Canada, France and Japan, are thrust into a winner-take-all space race - but the stakes are much higher than the race to the Moon nearly seven decades earlier. Six extraordinary individuals from the United States, Canada, France, Russia, and Japan are selected for this grueling two-year mission. These four men and two women must work together as a team, rise above their secret fears and struggle with the sacrifice of leaving friends and family behind. Training and determination will get them only so far, and when this crew sets out on humanity's first expedition to another world, nothing can prepare them for the unexpected danger and staggering wonder of what they will experience. Bringing the remarkable story to life are Michael Riley as Captain Rick Irwin, Pascale Bussières (Ma vie en cinémascope) as astronaut Jackie Decelles; Lothaire Bluteau (24) as flight engineer Antoine Hebert; Claudia Ferri (Mambo Italiano, Hunt for Justice) as Flight Surgeon Lucia Alarcon; Frank Schorpion (One Dead Indian, Human Trafficking) as flight engineer Mikhail Cerenkov and Kevan Ohtsji (Stargate SG-1) as astronaut Hiromi Okuda. "Just as Captain Rick Erwin assembled the 'best of the best' for his pioneering mission to Mars, so too have we gathered the most comprehensive research, technologically accurate effects, strongest cast and most compelling writing team for this Race to Mars," said Phyllis Platt, Executive Producer for Galafilm Inc. The visual effects created for Race to Mars will transport viewers 56-million kilometers away from home to the outer limits of human ingenuity. Shot in High Definition, the simulated 2030 mission to Mars will be supported by hard science - from the props and costumes to the Martian environment and spaceship/rover models - and each aspect is designed in consultation with an expert panel of scientists and space engineers. Visual effects include on-set stunt work, digital post-production animation and sophisticated CGI created by the Montreal-based SFX teams behind feature film blockbusters such as The Aviator, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and The Day After Tomorrow. Canadian writing team Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens wrote the script for Race to Mars. The Reeves-Stevens' have extensive writing and producing credits to their names, including Star Trek: Enterprise (story editors and co-producers for season four), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (staff writers and supervising producers); have developed series with Dreamworks, Film Roman and Universal Television among others; and are accomplished fiction writers, with political/military thrillers earning them a place on the New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller list. The Reeves-Stevens' were invited by NASA's Chief Administrator to become members of an ongoing Space Policy Workshop of "distinguished forward-thinking individuals to bring new perspectives and ideas into the debate" to produce a new vision for America's future goals in space. Their extensive knowledge of science, technology and political policy - not to mention exceptional storytelling skills - have resulted in a script that is both full of compelling human drama and faultless technical accuracy. MORE