On the Silver Globe

After abandoning a dystopian future Earth, a small band of dissident astronauts crash-land on an earthlike planet and set out to establish a new human civilization—only to discover in time that they carry the seeds of their own slow demise and a new mythology. Polish writer-director Andrzej Żuławski adapted On the Silver Globe from The Lunar Trilogy, novels written between 1901 and 1911 by his grand-uncle, Jerzy Żuławski. After a year of filming in 1976 and 1977, Polish authorities shut down the production and ordered all materials destroyed, but the studio, cast, and crew preserved reels, costumes, and props, allowing Żuławski to devise a conclusion in time to screen the film at Cannes in 1988. RogerEbert.com proclaimed, “Even out of time, even incomplete, even now that its director is gone for good, On the Silver Globe endures and its beautiful power will never dim.”