A new animated Russian film celebrates the Soviet spacedogs, who was the first living mammal in space.

Of course the film take some liberties with history, but tells a spacestory in a disney-quality animation.

The films original title is "Belka and Strelka: Star Dogs".

It starts when the dogs are caught on a Moscow street and taken to a research centre, where they are trained for space flight with a series of gruelling tests and sessions in a spinning centrifuge. Then it's time for them to blast off into space, along with a fast-talking rat, called Venya

In real life Strelka was the second dog to into space and survive the trip in 1960 (The first dog laika died in orbit),whereas the real Belka did not make it into space.

Judging from the trailers it is a well-made animated film of international standard, that is also available in 3D.

It has just been released in Russia, but can not be expected to hit European cinema's untill later this year at the earliest

Source: www.belka-i-strelka.ru