CHRONOVISOR Trailer: An Academic Encounters an Occult Machine Conspiracy
One of the biggest cinematic gems this year is a conspiracy thriller of sorts that dabbles in some form of time travel. Writer-directors Kevin Walker and Jack Auen’s Chronovisor follows a French academic (played by real-life professor Anne-Laure Sellier) holed up in a room of archival text who begins to investigate and obsess over a device invented by a Benedictine monk that he claims can transmit past events on a screen. Following its premieres at Rotterdam and New Directors New Films, Grasshopper will release the paranormal thriller in theaters September 4.
Editor-at-large Matt Delman wrote in his ND/NF curtain-raiser, “The most exciting new vision I’ve seen in quite some time, Jack Auen and Kevin Walker’s Chronovisor feels both old and brand new. Shot on luscious 16mm film, the style is overwhelmingly mesmerizing, singular but not bombastic. If you enjoyed The Ninth Gate (1999), you’ll be fascinated by the detective work on display here from the main character, Béatrice Courte (Anne-Laure Sellier), who is a real-life professor and scholar… The grainy final images are haunting, leaving an indelible impression of spiritual consequence.”
As the official synopsis reads:
While writing a monograph on historical theories of memory, Béatrice (Anne-Laure Sellier), a respected academic, becomes beguiled by the allegedly true story of the Chronovisor, an occult device said to reproduce visuals from any point in history on a TV screen. Her obsession with the mysterious machine drags her from her Upper East Side apartment through the depths of New York City’s hidden libraries, to the edge of a breakthrough.
NYC’s Film at Lincoln Center will host Bibliomania: A Preface to Chronovisor, an anthology of thrillers that also center on research, conspiracies, and hunting circumstances.
Check out the trailer and poster below.
