Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEE is a classic – not only because of its visionary visual language and its depiction of space travel, which remains fascinating to this day, but also because of its extraordinary film score. György Ligeti’s orchestral work Atmosphères plays a central role in this; Kubrick initially used it in the film without the composer’s permission. The work’s ethereal, floating passages lend the film its mysterious, transcendent atmosphere. Thanks to the worldwide success of 2001, Ligeti’s music became known far beyond the boundaries of contemporary music and firmly established the Hungarian composer in pop culture.

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As part of the Musikfest Berlin, which opens on August 28, 2026, with Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre at the Berlin Philharmonie, we will be screening the film once again on the big screen. At the newly renovated Kino International, with brilliant Christie laser projection and Dolby 7.1 sound, Kubrick’s visually and aurally powerful masterpiece can be experienced in a quality that does special justice to its visionary power and the impressive impact of Ligeti’s music.