In an undefined near-future, a new, top-secret mission is announced: a test flight around Saturn to try out new automatic probes for passing through the Cassini Division.
Recruited to the mission, Pilot Pirx gradually comes to understand its covert purpose: to test a new kind of android being developed by a shady corporation and which, it is hoped, will come to replace human beings on space flights. Only some of Pirx’ five-person crew are human, the rest are robots: can he tell them apart, and can they be trusted?
Shot in part at various newly-built modernist locations including the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, and featuring an edgy, percussive score by composer Arvo Part, the film combines sci-fi speculation with the look and feel of a 70s-era conspiracy thriller.
Curated by the Barbican in partnership with Kinoteka Polish Film Festival
