‘Survive in the Ice’ Enters Post-Production After Filming in Temperatures as Low as Minus 39°C

Dragon Media News Desk

Mosfilm’s new psychological action thriller “Survive in the Ice” has entered a major phase of post-production following the completion of principal photography.

According to an update released by Mosfilm on Friday, dialogue and effects recording, sound mixing, colour correction and work on complex computer-generated imagery are now underway at the studio’s own production and technical facilities.

Set in the early 1980s, the film centres on personnel stationed at the fictional Soviet Antarctic research station “Voskhod.” Trapped in an extreme winter situation, the characters are forced to confront not only severe cold but also psychological pressure, personal fears and the struggle for survival.

Mosfilm says Voskhod was conceived not as a replica of a single real facility, but as a composite artistic representation of Soviet polar stations of the period. Archival photographs, documentary footage, materials from Mosfilm’s library and consultations with polar specialists who worked in Antarctica during the 1980s were used to recreate the environment.

Location filming took place around Teriberka in Russia’s Murmansk Region, where temperatures fell as low as minus 39 degrees Celsius. Working in genuine extreme cold allowed the filmmakers to achieve a greater degree of visual authenticity.

Extensive sets reproducing an Antarctic research station of the early 1980s were also constructed inside Mosfilm’s studios. The production recreated period equipment including an aircraft and the legendary Soviet Antarctic tracked vehicle known as the “Kharkovchanka.” Its exterior was deliberately aged to reproduce the appearance of machinery subjected to prolonged polar use.

The film is written and directed by Alexander Zachinyaev, while renowned filmmaker and Mosfilm Director General Karen Shakhnazarov serves as general producer.

The cast includes Vitaly Kishchenko, Alexander Gorbatov, Alexey Vertkov, Yuri Belyaev, Darya Ursulyak, Kirill Grebenshchikov, Ivan Shakhnazarov, Oleg Vasilkov and Maxim Kostromykin, among others.

Composer Yuri Poteyenko is creating a large-scale symphonic score for the film, which is planned to be recorded with a live orchestra.

Mosfilm has emphasized that the feature is being financed entirely from the studio’s own resources, without state-budget or sponsorship funding. Its post-production is likewise being carried out through Mosfilm’s own technical infrastructure.

Production is scheduled to be fully completed by December 2026. Combining large-scale location work, historically detailed production design and psychologically driven storytelling, “Survive in the Ice” has emerged as one of Mosfilm’s major original feature-film projects of the year.