NEW DOCUMENTARY SPACEWOMAN WILL CELEBRATE EILEEN COLLINS: THE FIRST WOMAN EVER TO PILOT AND THEN COMMAND A SPACE SHUTTLE
London 06 February 2024: Multi award-winning producers Keith Haviland, Haviland Digital [Last Man on the Moon, Chasing the Moon, Gazza, Lancaster] and Natasha Dack Ojumu, Tigerlily [ENO, Blue Bag Life, The Lovers and the Despot] today announce that they are making a new landmark feature documentary called SPACEWOMAN about the extraordinary achievements of Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and command a spacecraft, paving the way for the next generation of female space explorers.
The film is based on her memoir “Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars” written by Eileen and Jonathan H. Ward and is directed by Hannah Berryman [Coco Chanel: Unbuttoned, Rockfield: the Studio on the Farm, Princess Margaret: The Rebel Royal)
Hannah Berryman, director said: ‘Eileen’s journey from an underprivileged childhood in small town America to becoming the first woman to pilot and command a space shuttle is a fascinating one. The emotional drama of her family’s tale is just as gripping as the risks the shuttle astronauts like Eileen had to take.’
An average student in average small-town America, inspired by the astronauts she saw on TV, Eileen nurtured a secret dream to fly to space herself. In the 1970’s the US military selected female pilots for the first time, and Eileen became one of those daredevil test pilots. Proving herself in this man’s world, she inspired thousands of others when she became NASA’s first female pilot of a space shuttle.
SPACEWOMAN will show Eileen’s experience of the epic violence of a space shuttle launch, a historic docking with a Russian space station, and follow the dramatic tale of one of the most perilous and important missions in the history of space travel. It also tells the very human story of a family, examining the tough background that made Eileen a woman who could manage fear and take command, and, as a mother, guide the journey of her own family through extraordinary and risky endeavours.
Eileen Collins said: “I am enormously excited to be involved with this film project. It is more than my personal journey through life’s challenges; it also includes the thrill of flying jets, my determination to be an astronaut, commanding the space shuttle, and the many relationships I built along the way.”
This inspirational 90-minute feature documentary will be completed at the end of 2024 for theatrical release in 2025.