Instead of “Wishing on a Star,” Slovak filmmaker Péter Kerekes makes his dreams come true, returning to Lido – and Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section – with his latest film.
In 2021, Kerekes picked up the Horizons award for best screenplay alongside Ivan Ostrochovský for “107 Mothers.” Now, he is back in Venice with “Wishing on a Star,” but he didn’t immediately jump at the chance to follow Luciana de Leoni D’Asparedo, a Neapolitan astrologer who asks her clients to take life-changing trips on their birthdays in order to be “reborn.”
“It felt like an absurd story,” jokes Kerekes.
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“My Austrian producer Ralph Wieser kept asking me to work with Erica Barbiani on a film about astrology. She wanted me to direct it. I was saying ‘no’ for three consecutive years. ‘Come on, I don’t believe in it. I don’t even read horoscopes!’ But I wanted to be polite, so we had dinner with Luciana. The moment I met her, I changed my mind,” he reveals to Variety.
“I may not believe in astrology, but I believe in her.”
The film, produced by Wieser, Barbiani, Kerekes, Lucia Candelpergher, Anna Mach Rumanová, Vít Schmarc, Vanja Jambrovic, Tibor Keser and Stefano Centini, debuts an exclusive clip above.
A Videomante production, “Wishing on a Star” was made in co-production with Kerekesfilm, Artcam Films, Mischief Films and Restart, with Volos Films, RTVS Radio and Television Slovakia also on board. Films Boutique handles sales.
Newly converted, Kerekes – also behind “Velvet Terrorists” and “Cooking History” – turned his attention to Luciana’s clients as well, ready to head to the end of the world for their “birthday trips.”
“If you think about it, all the biggest religions share this concept of pilgrimage. You go to Mecca, Santiago de Compostela, Częstochowa [in Poland]. You have to leave your home and your secure environment to finally be with yourself,” he says.
“We told Luciana: ‘We really don’t care where you are sending these people, just don’t send them twice to the same place,’” he laughs.
In the film, Kerekes travels to Taiwan and Lebanon, but the first interviews in Italy still proved to be the most intriguing.
“These scenes might seem boring, because you are just sitting in this one room, but there were so many surprises. There was a woman married to a butcher, unhappy in her marriage. Luciana asked if she wanted to find new love. She started to cry, saying: ‘No, I want to find the love we have lost.’”
“With Luciana, at first, I wanted to show a bigger part of her everyday life, personal struggles and her dream of going back to Naples [from the north of Italy]. But she’s such a strong personality that it’s enough if she’s just sitting behind that desk.”
Not knowing Italian forced him to focus on other “magical” moments during the shoot.
“You pay attention to gestures, people’s expressions. I felt like a hitchhiker, meeting all these strangers who were telling me their biggest secrets. They knew I would be gone soon. Also, this film couldn’t be made anywhere else. In Italy, you pick up a random person from the street and they’re all perfect actors.”
Kerekes found himself empathizing with quite a few of his protagonists, including a woman working through the issues with her father.
“This story was important to me personally. I am an absent father as well; I am always away. It was a message to my kids, in a way,” he says.
He also realized that the wishes of Luciana’s clients provide a “fantastic” sociological insight into our society.
“You would think we live in a world obsessed with consumption, but everyone’s looking for love and relationships. Not that many people asked about money, although one lovely lady was hoping Amazon would go bankrupt – she owned a small bookstore in Trieste. Our society isn’t lost. We still know what’s important.”
And has he ever considered going on a “birthday trip” himself?
“Yes, but I will keep that a secret. I can tell you one thing, though. It’s really working.”
