The Seattle Gdynia Sister City Association presents the movie Pilot Pirx’s Inquest / Test Pilota Pirxa (1978, 95′), dir. by Marek Piestrak and based on the short story by Stanisław Lem The Inquest from the Tales of Pirx the Pilot / Opowieści o pilocie Pirxie series.

The movie is about “finite non-linears,” robots that closely resemble human beings but are even more perfect than humans. They are intended to eventually replace humans in space flights. Somewhat apprehensive about their usefulness, the United Nations sets up a test space flight with a mixed human-robot crew. Pirx is selected as the commander of the flight, but the identity of the robot or robots is not revealed to him.

Stanisław Lem (1921-2006) is best known for his science-fiction novels and stories, with “Solaris” being the most famous world-wide due to being adapted to the silver screen several times.  However, he was also a respected thinker, philosopher, essayist and columnist who was very well versed in all new scientific, economic and social developments of his time, starting with cybernetics, genetics and social engineering of the 1950s and the 1960s and down to the civilization challenges of the 21st century. His books, spanning multiple genres from crime novels to political satire, were frequently a vehicle to convey his take on philosophical or political issues, trends in societies and on the future fate of our civilization.

The movie will stream on Zoom.

More: Lem’s bio, his official site, Lem’s books are widely available, on Amazon etc.