An Italian priest's time machine takes Venice by eerie surprise

The Venice Film Festival's late-night slate has produced an unexpected talking point. 'Chronovisor,' a debut feature reviewed by The New York Times, follows an academic who becomes fixated on an invention attributed to an Italian priest — a device supposedly capable of viewing events from the past. The Times calls it an 'enchanting' mystery that builds to an eerie climax.

The film taps into a genuinely Italian strain of folklore: the Chronovisor, a purported time-viewing machine allegedly constructed by a Benedictine monk in the 1960s and long dismissed by the Vatican as a hoax. The premise has circulated for decades in esoteric circles, and its cinematic treatment arrives at a festival already steeped in stories about power, perception and the machinery of belief.

For a festival that opened with Danny Boyle's rollicking tabloid saga 'Ink' and has hosted jury-chair Maggie Gyllenhaal's pointed remarks on the industry's 'systemic problem' with sexism, 'Chronovisor' offers a different register — a slow-burn, atmospheric mystery rather than a statement picture.