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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

‘Wishing On A Star’: Tallinn Review

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Dir: Peter Kerekes. Italy/Slovakia/Czech Republic/Austria/Croatia. 2024. 99mins.

Some individuals imagine that destiny is written within the stars. Astrologer Lucianna de Leoni, figuring out of a baroque and barely down-at-heel turreted villa within the Veneto area of Italy, takes a extra versatile strategy. To grasp their goals (of affection, wealth, or only a new begin) she sends her purchasers on a rigorously calibrated birthday journey, for them to be reborn beneath a brand new sky. The newest movie from Slovak director Peter Kerekes (107 Moms, Velvet Terrorists) Wishing On A Star is a heat, eccentric and often amusing documentary hybrid that maps the journeys of Lucianna and her shopper as they pursue their goals.

Heat, eccentric and often amusing

This movie looks like an outlier within the present non-fiction panorama which, maybe understandably, appears dominated by the crushing horrors of up to date life. With its quirky, bigger than life characters, jaunty music and eye for absurdity, Wishing On A Star is reminiscent in tone to among the extra droll episodes of the BBC documentary sequence Trendy Instances. The movie, which screens in Tallinn having premiered in Venice might be a horny proposition for documentary specialist distributors searching for offbeat non-fiction crowd-pleasers.

Lucianna is a giant believer in new beginnings, each for her purchasers and for her quick household. A terrific opening shot exhibits a chair chucked by way of the window on the very prime of the tower that looms over her residence. It’s adopted by varied different bits of furnishings, a frying pan and a few ornaments. It’s the brand new yr, and Lucianna, her husband and daughter burn their discarded possessions in a ritual bonfire: “We burn the previous so the brand new can come.”

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She interrogates her household over their needs for the approaching yr. Her placid husband is pleased with issues the way in which they’re; her daughter would really like a brand new job. Lucianna, nevertheless, has grander ambitions – she want to relocate again to Naples, town of her delivery. However whereas Lucianna is within the wish-granting enterprise, her personal goals have, till now, been positioned on a back-burner.

Purchasers additionally share their hopes for the long run, and Lucianna squints at her star charts and a map of the world. She’s half astrologer, half journey agent. And, when wanted, she’s additionally a counsellor, providing sage recommendation to the ladies – and they’re virtually all ladies – who pay for her bespoke providers.

A pair of bickering equivalent twins, Adriana and Giuliana, who’ve interlinked needs for every others’ futures, are despatched to Beirut, the place they proceed to argue however attain an accord over the massive query of motherhood. Giovanni, a lonely undertaker, would really like a spouse and a household, if solely to appease his overbearing mom. Lucianna suggests Brazil as his birthday astrological revamp and, in setting the wheels in movement for his journey, Giovanni stumbles right into a relationship with the feminine undertaker who he recruits to run his enterprise whereas he’s away. It quickly turns into clear, nevertheless, that Giovanni’s unhealthy romantic luck has nothing to do together with his horoscope and the whole lot to do together with his relationship together with his stifling and judgemental mum or dad.

Elsewhere, a younger mom of two hopes for the rekindling of her chilly and distant husband’s affections. Lucianna appears uncertain and suggests Anchorage in Alaska. The girl settles for a stuffed polar bear and a washing-up bowl filled with ice cubes in her front room in its place. 

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The traces between fiction and non-fiction are intentionally blurred – there are clearly components and conditions which might be scripted and arrange, however Kerekes has no management on how a scenario will play out as soon as he has skilled his digital camera onto it. The end result generally is a little episodic – the chapter coping with Giovanni is closed relatively despondently and abruptly for instance. However the stars align neatly for a closing sequence that sees Luciana take her personal birthday journey – to Naples, the place else?

Manufacturing corporations: Videomante, Kerekesfilm, Artcam Movies, Mischief Movies, Restart

Worldwide gross sales: Movies Boutique contact@filmsboutique.com

Producers: Erica Barbiani, Lucia Candelpergher, Peter Kerekes, Ralph Wieser, Vit Schmarc, Vanja Jambrović, Stefano Centini

Screenplay: Erica Barbiani, Peter Kerekes

Cinematography: Martin Kollar

Modifying: Marek Sulík

Music: Lucia Chutkova

Important forged: Luciana de Leoni D’Asparedo, Valentina Angeli, Alessandra Fornasier, Barbara Lutman, Giovanni Rugo, Adriana Vangone, Giuliana Vangone

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