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Savina Petkova What if a new Messiah appeared today, but his supernatural power was to release people’s intimate videos unprompted? Such a beguiling premise shapes Armenian Vilnius-based director Marat Sargsyan’s sophomore feature, “The Grand Inquisitor.” In it, the omnipotent creature is an AI that looks like a human being and has a human name, Vermis. Soon, his crimes pile up, the authorities are helpless, and any investigation thwarted. The film will be presented next week at Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Agora Crossroads Co-production Forum.

Replete with peculiar ideas about the nightmare of modern conflict, especially in bleakly undefined, but vaguely former-Soviet territories, Armenian director Marat Sargsyan’s debut, which started its life in Venice Critics’ Week and just picked up a Special Mention in the Transilvania International Film Festival Competition, is a strange and not wholly successful mixture of confounding and compelling.