Icarus XB-1

Director: Jindrich Polák

1963 / 88min / DCP

Adapted from a novel by Solaris author Stanisław Lem, this enthralling work of Czechoslovak sci-fi—surmised to have been a key influence on Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey—sets its scene in the year 2163, when a multinational team of astronauts set out on a peril-fraught journey across the cosmos in search of life on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, a voyage which sees them contending with with dangerous remnants of the 20th-century arms race, dissention in their own ranks, and the terrible knowledge of their mortality. An austerely beautiful film combining Eastern Bloc ideology, far-out futurist production design, and gripping psychodrama.