A Russian actress and film director landed near Russia’s spaceflight base in Kazakhstan after 12 days in orbit.

A Russian actress and a film director landed safely on Earth early Sunday after spending 12 days aboard the International Space Station shooting scenes for the first feature-length drama made with scenes shot in space.

Yulia Peresild, the actress, and Klim Shipenko, a film director, launched to space with a Russian astronaut on Oct.

The 12-day journey, backed by Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, was the latest act in a race among spacefaring countries to generate public excitement about human spaceflight and demonstrate that destinations like the space station aren’t exclusive to government astronauts.

The Russian space agency said that the crew felt well ahead of their exit from the Soyuz, and would undergo a 10-day rehabilitation to help recover from the effects of living in the microgravity environment of low-earth orbit.

When it docked, Pyotr Dubrov, one of the space station’s Russian astronauts, was waiting behind a large digital cinema camera as the crew emerged from their capsule and floated into the station for the first time.

Russia’s space agency announced its intention last year to send an actress to the space station shortly after plans emerged that Tom Cruise would trek to space as part of an action-adventure film directed by Doug Liman.