Stanisław Lem
Birth : 1921-09-12, Lwów, Lwowskie, Poland
Death : 2006-03-27
History
Stanisław Lem was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. He was named a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is perhaps best known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976, Theodore Sturgeon claimed that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humankind's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns. Multiple translated versions of his works exist.
Novel
A Hungarian journalist who is about to start a family journeys to the United States in the hopes of finding his own father, a scientist who went missing in the 1970s while working on a top secret military research project that examined 'voices' from outer space.
Self - Writer (archive footage)
An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.
Story
Animated short fim based on a short story by Stanisław Lem. Hydrops, the king of Aquacia, has ordered to his advisors to create a new heir and successor to his throne. The rivalry and intrigues between the advisors, concentrating on the good qualities that the future perfect prince should have, finally leads to the implantation of a matrix for loving small things. This is how a new obsession will be born...
Novel
An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.
Writer
The man-made artificial intelligence GOLEM XIV faces its creators with a detached view of human nature and its culture.
Writer
"Maska" is the latest animated film of Quay brothers, directors and puppet animators, with the music composed by Krzysztof Penderecki. The film is an adaptation of Stanisław Lem’s short story of the same title. The action of “Maska” is set in a technologically developed but, at the same time, feudal world. Beautiful Duenna was created in order to carry out certain mission. However, she will be forced to choose between accomplishing the task she was created for and love.
Author
A bookshop renowned for its rare works is mysteriously and completely filled with copies of a book entitled 1, which doesn't appear to have a publisher or author. The strange almanac describes what happens to the whole of humanity in the space of a minute. A police investigation begins and the bookshop staff are placed in solitary confinement by the Bureau for Paranormal Research (RDI Reality Defense Institute). As the investigation progresses, the situation becomes more complex and the book increasingly well known, raising numerous controversies (political, scientific, religious and artistic). Plagued by doubts, the protagonist has to face facts: reality only exists in the imagination of individuals.
Writer
Polish animator Anna Błaszczyk’s humorous short—a collage of drawing, cut-out, and computer animation—was inspired by Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel Return from the Stars, a time-paradox tale of an astronaut who returns to Earth after many years away.
Writer
Shot while the director was still in college, the film is a remake of the Russian film of the same name. The man's dead ex who had committed suicide appears in front of him. The ghost has a cross-like scar on her wrist.
Writer
The astronaut Chris Kelvin receives a visit from a woman who is a double of his dead wife. This story, told in Stanislaw Lem’s eponymous novel, was once adapted into the film Solaris by the legendary Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky. According to Deimantas Narkevičius, Tarkovsky was not as critical of the increasing impact of electronic media on relationships and on the complex nature of human memory as Lem, the original author of the story. In this video, the actor Donatas Banionis reappears in his role as Kelvin, forty years after Tarkovsky’s film was shot. Revisiting Solaris is based on the last chapter of Lem's book, which had been left out of Tarkovsky’s adaptation. In order to visualize the landscape of Solaris and expose complex specters of the past, Narkevičius combines the new footage and a series of photos from 1905 taken by the Lithuanian painter and composer Mykolojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis.
For decades the photographer Krzysztof Gierłatowski has portrayed eminent Polish figures, thus creating an invaluable visual testimony. This time his "victims" are well-known citizens of Kraków: Stanisław Lem, one of the most brilliant, versatile, and unapologetically cerebral science fiction writers, author of 'Solaris'; Krzysztof Penderecki, one of the most esteemed and widely discussed Polish composers of the 20th century; and Wisława Szymborska, Nobel laureate in Literature in 1996, one of the few women poets who has received the Swedish prize. Gierłatowski assumes the role of a modern Stańczyk, a legendary thinker-jester, prophesying on the historical Polish Republic in his dramatic conviction that History annihilated the intellectual elite of his nation and the future will bring awe and destruction.
Novel
A troubled psychologist is sent to investigate the crew of an isolated research station orbiting a bizarre planet.
Author
Screenplay
Novel
Pirx, an experienced pilot, is hired to go on a top-secret mission to evaluate some 'nonlinears' (an experimental model of android) for use as crewmembers on future space flights. Pirx and this intriguing crew are sent out to launch two satellites into the rings of Saturn, but he is determined to find out and identify a hostile unhuman coworker among them.
Novel
Novel
The film is set toward the beginning of World War II, at a psychiatric hospital in the country. But this is an unusual hospital: there are several incurable schizophrenic cases, staff is bit strange and a writer has voluntarily entered the clinic because he is "peculiar" and a drug addict. Then, the occupying forces arrive...
Novel
GDR TV play based on a story by Stanislaw Lem.
Book
GDR TV play based on a story by Stanislaw Lem.
Story
A short animation inspired by the Stanisław Lem short story about Trurl from "The Cyberiad".
Novel
A Scotland Yard officer investigates the mysterious disappearance of a series of corpses. Based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem.
Novel
A psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet called Solaris to investigate the death of a doctor and the mental problems of cosmonauts on the station. He soon discovers that the water on the planet is a type of brain which brings out repressed memories and obsessions.
Novel
Kris Kelvin joins the space station orbiting the planet Solaris, only to find its two crew members plagued by "phantoms," creations of Solaris. Kelvin is soon confronted with his own phantom, taking the shape of his dead wife Hari.
Story
Tichy is caught by a storm on the side road, and therefore forced to seek shelter in strange looking house. He is welcomed by Profesor Zazul, who devoted his life to cloning experiments. Based on a short story by Stanisław Lem featured in Memories of Ijon Tichy.
Writer
Based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem (Solaris). The main character, race car driver Ryszard Fox, is involved in many car accidents. After each car crash he gets a transplant for one or another internal organ. After a while there is a question: Who really is Ryszard Fox?
Novel
Novel
The year is 2163. Starship Ikaria XB 1 embarks on a mission deep into space in search of alien life. During their perilous journey the crew confront the effects of a malignant dark star, the destructive legacy of the 20th century and, ultimately, the limits of their own sanity.
Short Story
Writer
Animated short film written by Stanislaw Lem.
Writer
Animated short film written by Stanislaw Lem.
Novel
A mysterious magnetic spool found during a construction project is discovered to have originated from Venus. A rocket expedition to Venus is launched to discover the origin of the spool and the race that created it.
