After encountering a peculiar character claiming to be Saint Andrea, village photographer Celestino Esposito (Gennaro Pisano) discovers that his camera now has special powers: a simple click of the shutter can kill evil-doers in its sights – even snaps of existing photos can spell doom. When Celestino decides to use this mysterious weapon for revenge, power inevitably corrupts and he soon finds himself struggling with the executions he has caused. After all, the nature of evil is not as black and white as his celluloid.

A curious little gem in Roberto Rossellini’s oeuvre, The Machine That Kills Bad People marks a turning point in the director’s practice; a toying with artifice and realism, the Italian comedy and the new cinema; a middle ground between his gritty war dramas and the more poetic works to come. While it sounds like neorealist Death Note, this light, supernaturally-tinged moral satire examines the place of the camera (cinema) in society and how the mix of the village’s traditional moral values with the corrupting power of advanced technology inevitably culminates as a recipe for fascism.