Roberto Rossellini considered it his most original film. La macchina ammazzacativi has recently been rediscovered, following its restoration. Rossellini takes neo-realism or realism as a starting point, only to find a path closer to a fable, based on a text by Eduardo De Filippo. Rossellini gives way to his fantasy, while maintaining the improvisation regarding the script, the documentary-style shooting of real scenes stripped of cinematic artifice and the genuine mix of professional actors and amateurs that characterizes his films. 

A modest photographer from a small coastal town meets a strange character – who introduces himself as Saint Andrew, and bestows upon him the gift of petrifying any person whose picture he takes. Celestino, for that is the photographer’s name, thus establishes himself as a sort of vigilante who decides what is good and what is evil at will. But Celestino loses control of the camera; now it dominates him. 

A fable about the mistrust of the power of the camera (or cinema) to reproduce life.