“We have been captivated by the intensity of this particular space travel — a voyage that took our minds and senses. The music was terrific as well as the sound design, combined with a tight exploitation of camera angles, reflecting the human souls as deep as they can be. Besides, the restoration work was high-quality with particularities such as the marks that are historically significant", said Gérald Duchaussoy, coordinator of Cannes Classics section of Cannes IFF.

"Restored films have been screened at the big festivals for many years, but having Ikarie play at Cannes is a huge success for the National Film Archive. I was pleased that even in Cannes they appreciate our efforts to preserve the period character and charm”, said the Director of the National Film Archive in the Czech Republic, Michal Bregant.

CS 1963
DIRECTOR Jindřich Polák
SCRIPT Pavel Juráček, Jindřich Polák
DOP Jan Kališ
EDITOR Josef Dobřichovský
MUSIC Zdeněk Liška
SET DESIGNER Jan Zázvorka
CAST Zdeněk Štěpánek, Radovan Lukavský, Dana Medřická, Miroslav Macháček, František Smolík, Jiří Vršťala

It is the second half of the 22nd century and a spaceship called Ikarie XB 1 is on its way to Alfa Centauri to search for extraterrestrial forms of life. Its crew, made up primarily of scientists from various fields, being far from our solar system, is exposed to unknown and unimaginable dangers. At the same time, though, it also deals with a number of their everyday worries as well as their delights.

The film was digitally restored within the project “Digital restoration of Czech film heritage” which was supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway and co-financed by the Czech Ministry of Culture. Project partners were the National Library of Norway and CESNET.

“It was a great pleasure for us to co-operate on the project that returns Ikarie XB 1 to the film screens. The fact that Cannes IFF selected the restored version for its programme shows its appreciation of the high quality of the restoration and the collaboration of the experienced team of the Hungarian Filmlab and the Czech National Film Archive. The whole process – scanning, grading and restoring image and sound – was undertaken in detailed consultation with the restorers, and a lot of attention was devoted to preserving the authentic shape of the image and the sound from 1963 in the digital version”, said Róbert Nagy, from Hungarian Filmlab.