New age practices have made a strong comeback in popularity in recent times of global uncertainty and skepticism of traditional science, and one woman with no reason to complain about this renaissance is Luciana de Leoni d’Asparedo, a 63-year-old whose astrology practice in Italy is not short of new converts.
Sitting in front of a computer screen, she taps in the data of each client with businesslike attention, calculating destinations for their birthday trips where she claims that conducive astral configurations will allow them to readjust their life paths for optimal happiness and self-realisation. Luciana’s empathetic interest in those who come to her for help and no-nonsense nuggets of wisdom encourage them to open up and trust her, and make her appealing as the subject of Wishing on a Star, the new feature documentary from Slovak director Peter Kerekes, which premiered in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival, and which screens in the Audience Competition at DOK Leipzig. Jaunty music and a playful, lighthearted tone mean this glossily packaged spotlight on the esoteric maintains a skeptical, tongue-in-cheek distance. The film feels less meaty in socio-political import than previous Kerekes works, such as Slovakia’s 2021 Oscar entry 107 Mothers, about women with babies in Odesa prison in Ukraine, but it is buoyed by a charming warmth and gentle compassion for the human foibles and emotional struggles of daily life.
Luciana’s profession is officially in Active Astrology, but in her consultations she bears some similarity to a therapist or counsellor, as she provides a much-needed sounding board to bring the problems of her clients into more conscious perspective. Whether or not the cosmos is instrumental in the outcome, a solo holiday creates much-needed space for reflection, new experiences and a break from routine, enabling her troubled travellers to take stock and reevaluate their relationships and paths. Luciana herself admits limits to her ability to alter her clients’ destinies, describing people as creators of their own fate, rather than simply puppets on strings, who are ultimately responsible for their own minds and wills. Several of the clients we meet in her office are women who feel stuck, with little sense of agency over their lives, and the sessions are instrumental in nudging them out of their comfort zones.
A woman whose sense of dutiful companionship towards a domineering mother has prevented her from having her own children baulks at jetting off to Barbados, but after her parent passes away, she breaks habits — and the law — with a chilly dip closer afield in a Croatian lake. Another unfulfilled woman has maintained a keen passion for her field of studies, Cultural Heritage, but her butcher husband, who is eighteen years older, does not support her interest, and she is desperate to overcome her feelings of neglect and reignite the spark in their marriage. She can’t afford to go to Anchorage, her assigned destination, physically, so she is tasked with recreating Alaska in her own home as a “psychomagic act” of visualisation, complete with a giant stuffed polar bear, bowls of ice, and a makeshift igloo. The source of her tears is also shot in his workplace. In this hybrid docufiction, dramatic interactions and disclosures feel safely pre-agreed and scripted, but in a manner which creates sensitive space for considering imperfection, dissatisfaction and forms of unhealthy co-dependence as a common challenge of long-term bonds and family experience. From Taipei to Beirut, others hoping for inspiration from the universe jet off without hesitation, and the camera checks in on them.
Some of Luciana’s clients appear to have been included due to their quirkier situations, which at times incorporate the role of the uncanny and chance, lest we become too cynical about unknown cosmic forces. A funeral director who sees the dead is under pressure to marry and produce an heir to the family business, for instance; meanwhile two twins in matching outfits need to disentangle conflicting plans for a joint future and offspring. Luciana has a question mark over her own future, as she dreams of returning to Naples, reinforcing the old adage that it’s easier to advise others, than steer one’s own ship.
Director: Peter Kerekes
Screenplay: Erica Barbiani, Peter Kerekes
Producers: Erica Barbiani, Lucia Candelpergher
Cinematographer: Martin Kollar
Editor: Marek Sulik
Music: Lucia Chutkova
Sound: Michal Gabor
Production companies: Videomante (Italy), Kerekesfilm (Slovakia), Radio and Television of Slovakia (Slovakia), Artcam Films (Czech Republic), Mischief Films (Austria), Restart (Croatia), Volos Films (Italy)
Venue: DOK Leipzig (Audience Competition)
In Italian
99 minutes
