bamcinemaFest: The Machine That Kills Bad People (La macchina ammazzacattivi)

Part of BAMcinemaFest

Mon, Jun 25 at 9:15pm

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE OF RESTORATION
60th Anniversary Presentation

Director: Roberto Rossellini

(1952) 80min

Long mythologized as a lost work, Rossellini’s sole all-out comedy (he referred to it as an "isolated experiment"), re-emerged at Cannes last year in this pristine hi-def digital restoration from Bologna's L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and Cinecittá Luce. Inspired bycommedia dell’arte, this stinging satire on the postwar Marshall Plan and the Americanization of Italian society concerns a photographer named Celestino who discovers his camera has been imbued with magical powers—it strikes dead anyone caught in its lens. At first Celestino uses his newfound power to cleanse his town of the affluent and greedy, but his power soon gets out of control and not even the poor are safe from his contemptuous camera. 

Film restored in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia - Cineteca Nazionale, Coproduction Office and Cinecittà Luce.

BAM Rose Cinemas