War of the Worlds: Next Century (1981) Radiance UK - Blu-ray Region Free

In a radical reworking of the H.G. Wells classic, War of the Worlds: Next Century, tells the story of Iron Idem (celebrated Polish actor Roman Wilhelmi), a television host, who finds himself contending with a Martian invasion, whose takeover involves collaborating with the state and manipulating the populace through a media apparatus made up entirely of fake news... Drawing as much on George Orwell and 1984 as on Wells’ novel, Pior Szulkin’s prescient allegory of state and media control is a dark sci-fi that uses classic noir tropes to tell its sinister story.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• 2K restoration supervised by Piotr Szulkin and sound engineer Nikodem Wołk-Łaniewski, on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Samosiuk. The Independent Film Republic - a documentary on War of the Worlds cinematographer Zygmunt Samosiuk and his work, featuring interviews with Szulkin and Andrzej Wajda among others (Adam Lewandowski, 2012, 29 mins)
• PRL - Polish People's Republic Post-Apocalyptic Parables - a new video essay by Dobrotka Więckiewicz exploring Szulkin's rejection of the science-fiction label (2023)
• Labyrinth - Jan Lenica’s award-winning short film about a flying man who visits an art nouveau metropolis (1963, 15 mins)