A Dying Spaceship Is This Astronaut's Playground in Epic New Leningrad Promo

Great Guns director, Ilya Naishuller, releases his latest promo for Russian rock band, Leningrad. 

The latest tongue-in-cheek music video puts space travel on steroids, as we follow the wacky adventures of a lonely astronaut (played by Leningrad’s frontman, Sergei Snurov) and his animated alien friend, ‘Gesha’. Ilya’s playful vision of the cosmic far-future features groovy UV dance routines, epic escapes from explosions, champagne-filled celebrations and Tesla’s iconic Roadster looking worse for wear.

Commenting on the process, director Ilya says: “Listening to the band’s new EP, I immediately took a liking to the song ‘Tsoi’, which stood out for me for it’s uniquely nostalgic tone. The uplifting yet longing lyrics speak of frontman Sergei’s memories from the early '90s, such as getting his nose broken at classic St Petersburg locales. Right away, it inspired me to recreate that loneliness in the coldest and most isolated of places: outer space. I set the story in the far future and decided to have Sergei clumsily dancing through a dying spaceship. Since I’ve always wanted to work with full CG creatures, I thought it would be lots of fun to give Sergei a small alien friend to interact with, and so little ‘Gesha’ was born.”

With his fourth promo for Leningrad, Ilya builds on his animation credentials. It follows his first foray into animation, the music video ‘JuJu’, which launched earlier this year and chronicled a futuristic metropolis racked by violent gang wars. Ilya’s music video for Leningrad’s ‘Kolshik’ has earned him a number of major award wins including at Cannes, the One Show, D&AD, Kinsale, Berlin MVA, and UKMVA.

‘Tsoi’ is now live online.