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From statues that weep blood to dancing suns that lead to sudden darkness in the middle of the day, the Catholic faith overflows with accounts of miracles. But in order for a miracle to be deemed as such, it must go through a series of rigorous examinations during which the vast majority of occurences are debunked. The pious Rita López (Mónica Villa), the protagonist of Tomás Gómez Bustillo’s Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, spends her days seeking to be of service in her local church, but realizes nothing will pave her path to heaven faster than coming up with her own miracle––hence she enlists her husband Norberto (Horacio Marassi) in the restoration of a statue that might have mystical powers.

In his feature-length debut, Gómez Bustillo creates a world in which the mundane and divine are partners in a waltz that goes from sublime to absurd. With loving irreverence,...

A magic realist comic fable that ostensibly revolves around religion, Chronicles Of A Wandering Saint has a lot of faith in human nature. Tomás Gómez Bustillo keeps his bag of magic tricks firmly under wraps for his debut feature’s first half, however, as devout and mousy Rita (Mónica Villa) goes about her daily diligence at the local church, dusting, tidying and generally trying to avoid socialising with the other women there while also outdoing them in terms of the priest’s favour.

At home, Rita also feels stuck in a rut, resisting the charms of her sweetly attentive husband Norberto (Horacio Marassi) as he tries to recreate a waterfall holiday from their youth by slipping on a bright yellow rain poncho he’s found. Her sense of ennui is no doubt why she is drawn, like a moth to a light, to a statue she finds squirrelled away at the back of the.

The saying goes that miracles are everywhere for those with eyes to see them, which helps to explain why Rita Lopez — the most pious and competitive member of her rural Argentinian community — seems to find one in the first place she looks. Nearing 70, terminally bored of her marriage, and desperate for a heavenly sliver of the recognition that she’s been denied here on Earth, our heroine decides that an old sculpture she uncovers in the musty storeroom of her local church must be the statue of Saint Rita that’s been missing for 30 years, and was assumed to be lost forever.

It’s a big deal. So big, in fact, that Rita (Argentinian icon and “Wild Tales” star Mónica Villa) enlists her sweet and doddering husband Norberto (Horacio Marassi) to help smuggle the statue out of the church so she can spruce it up and unveil it to the...