SIFF Movie Club: Ikarie XB 1 (4K Restoration)

Ikarie XB1

Czechoslovakia | 1963 | 86 min. | Jindřich Polák

January 7, 2026

SIFF Movie Club

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. 4K restoration.

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Wednesday, January 7, 2026

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.

  • Director: Jindřich Polák
  • Principal Cast: Zdeněk Štěpánek, František Smolík, Dana Medřická
  • Country: Czechoslovakia
  • Year: 1963
  • Running Time: 86 min.
  • Producer: Rudolph Wolf
  • Screenplay: Pavel Jurácek, Jindřich Polák
  • Cinematographers: Jan Kalis
  • Editors: Josef Dobrchovsky
  • Language: Polish, Czech
  • Has Subtitles: Yes
  • US Distributor: Janus Films