Wishing on a Star

A fiction/documentary hybrid that undertakes a charmingly idiosyncratic investigation into the present state of human connection, Peter Kerekes’s Wishing on a Star follows a Neapolitan astrologer and her efforts to help her clients find love. Her clients all face one domestic complication or another in pursuit of a relationship, so she advises them to set out on a trip to various locales whose astral signs might be more conducive to finding what their hearts desire. Kerekes renders the results with a nose for the absurd and (however inadvertently) profound, but also with a warmth, openness, and willingness to play with the formal properties of cinema to arrive at a tender, sophisticated study of the lengths people will go for a chance at happiness. The film premiered in the Orizzonti program at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.