Actor Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In) has recently chosen his next project, a futuristic sci-fi film titled, The Congress. Adapted from Stanislaw Lem’s short story The Futurological Congress, the film will be directed by Ari Folman, whose last film was the Oscar-nominated Waltz with Bashir. Smit-McPhee joins a cast in the animated film that includes Robin Wright, Danny Huston, Harvey Keitel and Paul Giamatti. Smit-McPhee revealed his involvement in an interview with We Got This Covered (via The Playlist):

“I’m also doing a film called The Congress which is just in the rehearsal process and I think next week we’ll be shooting. I don’t really know how to explain it, I think it’s sci-fi and futuristic.”

We previously brought you the first image from the film last year. For more on The Congress, hit the jump.

futurological-congress-book-cover

Though Lem is not exactly a household name, you might recognize his previously adapted work, Solaris. The Congress appears to be loosely based on the source material, so here’s a brief description of the short story:

Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure [Amazon].

While that quote doesn’t give us a lot to go on, The Playlist provides a meatier description of the plot. In The Congress, the story revolves around  “the world of an actress (Robin Wright). She’s in decline because the studios just sampled her and they kept using her image. She walks into the future, which is a world that is totally controlled by the manufacture of psychiatric pharmacology products.”

Still not enough to get you interested? Well, how about checking out some early footage over at Slash Film. (Sorry about the overbearing translation.) As someone who’s actually read Lem’s The Futurological Congress, that brief animation sequence promises to capture the craziness and black humor of the novel. Wheelchair-mounted Tommy guns? Yes please!