The film features never-before-seen footage of Laika and other Soviet canine explorers.

Laika, a stray dog scooped off the streets of Moscow, launched on the Soviet Union's Sputnik 2 mission in November 1957, just a month after Sputnik 1's liftoff opened the space age.

Related: Laika the dog and the first animals in space.

A species that has been used in space history in two ways: both as an experimental object and as a symbol of courage and heroism," directors Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter said in a statement.

'Space Dogs' is dedicated to these fables and legends, to unknown worlds and to their discoverers.".

Kremser and Peter dug up stunning, never-before-seen footage of Laika and other Soviet space dogs.

Kremser and Peter knew it existed, thanks to tips from scientists and other sources who were involved with the Soviet space program in the 1950s.

For starters, "Space Dogs" is not chiefly about Laika and her fellow space explorers; the historical footage comprises less than one-third of the roughly 90-minute film.

The original idea involved simply profiling a pack of stray dogs, creating a multilayered "cinematic experience that is fully dedicated to them," Peter told Space.com. .

In addition, Kremser and Peter wanted to interrogate how humanity views animals.

In storytelling and nature documentaries, "they always put very clear roles on animals," Kremser said.

That light blazes through in "Space Dogs." The impressionistic Austrian documentary gives a pup's-eye view of Moscow, showing us a blurred and blended place on the margins of the human and canine worlds.

After all, painting such a detailed portrait of the dangerous, complex and frequently joyful life of a Moscow street dog gives us a much better appreciation of what those Soviet space scientists sacrificed in the name of progress more than half a century ago.