The War of the Worlds: Next Century

The War of the Worlds: Next Century (Wojna światów, 1981) is a Polish science fiction film you can watch online on iFILM. Director Piotr Szulkin took H.G. Wells' alien invasion and relocated it to broadcast studios and press briefings. The Martians have arrived — and they came equipped with a communications strategy.

Television anchor Iron Idem, played by Roman Wilhelmi, is handed a microphone and a script. His job is to smile, read the copy, and tell the country everything is proceeding normally. The moment he deviates, he discovers that a regime of aliens and a regime of humans deal with dissent in much the same way.

Filmed in Poland in 1981 — the same year the government imposed martial law — this is a film about complicity and propaganda that doesn't need the science fiction trappings to make its point. Stream The War of the Worlds: Next Century online on iFILM.