Czechoslovakia, 1963, 86 min, Dir. Jindřich Polák, Not Rated, Czech with English subtitles, Janus Films


Ikarie XB 1

Ends Thursday 12/31

"Beautiful and austere...remains one of the most original and exciting science fiction films ever made." —Alex Cox, director of Repo Man

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Price: $12
Viewing Window: 7 days to start. Once you begin, you'll have 72 hours to finish watching.
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A visionary work of Eastern Bloc science fiction, this mesmerizing Czechoslovak adaptation of a novel by Stanisław Lem melds Cold War ideology and utopian futurism into a tour de force of space-age modernism. In the year 2163, a band of astronauts embarks on a fifteen-year voyage deep into outer space, in hopes of discovering life in another galaxy. It’s a perilous journey during which they will confront the wreckage of the twentieth century, the chilling vastness of the cosmos, and their own mortality. A triumph of avant-garde production design that served as a model for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ikarie XB 1—long known internationally only through a mangled and dubbed reedit—is a singular sci-fi landmark that finds both terror and wonder in the unknown.


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