Film at Lincoln Center is spending the week before its biggest fall art-house debut convincing New Yorkers that watching someone read a book can be just as thrilling as watching them get chased through a jungle. The Upper West Side institution has been running a 15-film series called “Bibliomania” that closes out just as “Chronovisor,” the movie that inspired the whole retrospective, opens its theatrical run on September 4.
According to PIX11, “Bibliomania” runs from August 28 through September 3 and showcases how reading and research can be transformed into a cinematic experience. The series was timed to lead directly into the theatrical release of “Chronovisor” at Film at Lincoln Center, the debut feature from directing duo Kevin Walker and Jack Auen that follows a Columbia University scholar chasing a real-world conspiracy theory about a secret Vatican time-viewing device, according to Film at Lincoln Center.
The film stars real-life behavioral science professor Anne-Laure Sellier as scholar Béatrice Courte and was shot on 16mm in historic New York libraries, per an interview the directors gave to Science and Film. Walker and Auen deliberately avoided showing modern computer or smartphone screens on camera, the outlet reports, relying instead on physical books and open-page text translations overlaid directly onto the frame to capture the tactile thrill of paper-and-microfiche research rather than digital browsing.
A Real 1970s Vatican Conspiracy Theory
The story behind “Chronovisor” is not invented. It traces back to claims made in 1972 by Benedictine monk Father Pellegrino Ernetti, who alleged he helped build a time-viewing television alongside scientists Enrico Fermi and Wernher von Braun before the Vatican allegedly confiscated the device, as detailed by Discovery UK. Ernetti claimed the machine captured residual electromagnetic radiation to display past events, including speeches by Cicero and the Crucifixion of Christ.
That decades-old urban legend became the seed for a film that has already traveled far before reaching Lincoln Center. “Chronovisor” premiered in the Bright Futures section at the 2026 International Film Festival Rotterdam and won the Best Film award at the Jeonju International Film Festival, according to its Wikipedia entry. Grasshopper Film acquired North American distribution rights in April 2026 following that festival run, setting up its Lincoln Center opening.
Fifteen Films, One Argument About Reading
The retrospective itself was co-curated by directors Jack Auen and Kevin Walker alongside Film at Lincoln Center programmer Tyler Wilson to examine how cinema dramatizes the act of reading and archival research, per Film at Lincoln Center's own program notes. The lineup spans genres including screwball comedy, procedural thrillers, ghost stories, and text-based structural films, stitching together a case that solitary library work can carry its own suspense.
Among the archival highlights is the North American premiere of a new 4K restoration of Jean-Jacques Annaud's medieval library mystery “The Name of the Rose” from 1986, alongside a 4K restoration of Peter Medak's 1980 haunted-library thriller “The Changeling,” as reported by Screen Slate. The pairing is pointed: “The Name of the Rose” mirrors “Chronovisor” directly, using a monastic library as the stage for a high-stakes intellectual investigation.
The series also gave New Yorkers a rare technical curiosity. Film at Lincoln Center screened Steven Spielberg's “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” using a long-dormant 70mm blow-up print with a vintage magnetic audio soundtrack that had not been shown in a New York City theater since 1989. The venue noted that while the magnetic print delivers richer sound, it retains the physical analog wear-and-tear of decades of projection.
Experimental Shorts And A Free Book Fair
Experimental filmmaker David Gatten appeared in person at Lincoln Center on September 2 to present a dedicated program of three 16mm short films exploring 17th-century knowledge systems and text-based cinema, according to The Criterion Collection. The program included “The Matter Propounded…” from 2004 and “What Places of Heaven, What Planets Directed…” from 2013.
On August 29, Film at Lincoln Center hosted a free public book fair in the Furman Gallery, a detail confirmed by both the venue and PIX11's reporting on the series. Independent literary presses including New York Review Books, Archipelago Books, and Film Comment set up alongside on-site New York Public Library card registration, letting visitors browse books, zines, and film criticism and meet independent publishers without needing a movie ticket.
What It Costs To See It
Regular tickets for “Bibliomania” screenings were priced at $18 for the general public, $15 for students and seniors, and $13 for Film at Lincoln Center members, with special 70mm presentations set at $25. The venue also offered a 3+ Film Package that saved buyers $2 per ticket across eligible regular screenings, giving repeat visitors a reason to work through more of the 15-film lineup before it wrapped on September 3, one day ahead of “Chronovisor's” theatrical opening.
