Wishing on a Star (Péter Kerekes, 2024)

Also published in Croatian here.

“Most people want to find love in life” is a persuasive observation made by the astrologer Luciana, whose work centers on helping people improve their lives. Much like psychotherapy, her ability to interpret others’ confessions—particularly when paired with astrological insight—is designed to help clients see themselves as the architects of their own happiness and to recognize that it is never too late to embrace that responsibility. To nurture the hope of a new beginning, Luciana uses the position of the stars at the time of one’s birth to identify an ideal place on Earth where they can symbolically celebrate their “new birthday.”

This docufictional premise of the international co-production Wishing on a Star (2024), a recepient of the Ji.hlava / JB Films Support for 2024, took Slovak-Hungarian director Péter Kerekes to the small municipality of Aiello del Friuli in the Italian Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. With a body of work rooted in Eastern Europe—including Murder Ballads and Other Legends from Ladomírová (Ladomírske morytáty a legendy, 1998) about Slovak Rusyns; 66 Seasons (66 sezón, 2003), centered on a swimming complex in Košice; Cooking History (Ako sa varia dejiny, 2009), exploring military and wartime cuisine; Velvet Terrorists (Zamatoví teroristi, 2013), a caricatured takedown of the Czechoslovak regime; Batastories (Baťa, první globalista, 2019), chronicling the rise of the globally recognized Czech brand Baťa; and 107 Mothers (Cenzorka, 2021), filmed in a Ukrainian women’s prison; and his collaboration on the landmark Slovak documentary Slovensko 2.0 (2014)—Kerekes perceives Italy as a foreign context, one mediated to him primarily through film.

At the film’s Venice premiere, Kerekes explained that ever since childhood, he had dreamed of making an “Italian film” filled with strong emotions, humor, and Vespas. The character of Luciana proved to be the perfect starting point for that vision, especially since the entire film ultimately came to be built around her and what she manages to do for others.

Luciana’s clients may initially appear to be strikingly eccentric individuals. Among them are twin sisters who insist they are completely different, yet dress identically and are searching for a man who would father a child with one of them. There is also a woman who, as a student, entered into a relationship with a butcher eighteen years her senior—his emotional detachment and lack of interest in her now weigh heavily. Another visitor is a funeral organizer who, unable to settle down, seeks both a life partner and a successor to inherit his family business… And yet, as one gets to know them, it becomes clear they are all bound by similar longings and concerns. Many of Luciana’s clients carry regrets about past decisions, try to revive old dreams, search for the person they once believed their partner to be, or yearn to be seen by the world in a way that would finally feel truly meaningful to them.

The film’s humor stems from the tragicomic absurdity of the situations its characters stumble into on their journeys. There is a particular strangeness in the fact that some of Luciana’s clients only travel in their imagination—when unable to physically reach the place she recommends, they simulate the experience. Of all places in the world, the woman troubled by the butcher’s emotional coldness stages a symbolic journey to Alaska, spending a day shut in a room filled with store-bought ice, a portable air conditioner, a toy polar bear, and other makeshift scenery. Even for those who embark on real journeys, life’s ironies persist, accentuated by the director’s preference for distanced, static wide shots. After entering the sea in a visitor-designated zone in the chilly month of November, an elderly client is detained by Croatian police at the island of Lošinj.

A compelling shift in perspective occurs when Luciana finds herself in the client’s seat, listening to an astrological reading performed by her daughter, who is learning the craft from her. This moment not only serves as a reminder that even those who guide others are engaged in an ongoing process of self-work, but also reflects a universal generational tension, opening a deeply empathetic dimension of the film.

While it is generally advisable to avoid nationalizing cinematic style or expression, the film’s raw, warmly banal, and at times ironically charged interpersonal dynamics do evoke the docufictional atmosphere of Nanni Moretti’s work and the Felliniesque tradition of a magical cinematic energy, the convention recognized as utterly Italian. Not only that Kerekes sets his film in a specific geographic region, immersing the viewer in the cultural atmosphere of northern Italy, but he also produces a distinctly Italian sensibility. By deliberately sharpening his focus on communication and mutual understanding in human relationships—elements often associated with the cinematic tradition of “Italian-ness”—Kerekes does not just depict Italy but conjures it.

In that sense, Wishing on a Star is a film of energy and intangibility, even for those who dismiss astrology as inapplicable and view Luciana’s clients as entirely irrational. Yet this also means that Kerekes allows many narrative threads to remain unresolved—either guided by a belief in the open-endedness of his characters’ life journeys, or intentionally shifting the focus to the analyst’s, that is, Luciana’s own inner experience.

Part of the film’s magic stems from its visual treatment of reality—Kerekes gently guides it to shape his cinematic story in much the same way Luciana steers her clients. The airy cinematography by his longtime collaborator Martin Kollár alternates between the surreal glow of studio lighting and fascinating natural light. His frames often place visual weight in the lower two-thirds of the image, leaving the upper space strikingly empty above the subjects’ heads. This stylized composition not only renders the filming locations as near-magical spaces where wishes might actually come true but also heightens the sense of human vulnerability—people are tiny figures caught in earthly complications, beneath a gaze that seems to be watching from above. Still, as Luciana warns everyone, there is no fate, and no one is merely a puppet on a string.

This rule poignantly plays out in her own case. A southerner from Naples, Luciana is professionally tethered to Italy’s north, a region that never quite feels like home to her. In this dissonance, her story quietly echoes the sociological divide that has marked Italy ever since the onset of modernization.

Interpretative work is intrinsic to both the therapeutic process and astrological reading. Given that Luciana’s story is viewed from both perspectives—in the psychoanalytical jargon, she is at different points both the analyst and the analyzed—it becomes clearest through her that this work is as much projection as it is analysis.