With Rumba, Pueblo, and Laika, Ascanio Celestini has created a triptych that gives voice to the most wounded sides of humanity—an intense, poetic trilogy about the outcasts of our time: forgotten souls, fragile lives, stories ignited in the non-places of urban outskirts. The parking lot of a supermarket becomes a universal stage where God, a sex worker, a homeless man, or an African porter embody a suffering and luminous humanity. Celestini makes this light shine through the shadows—with a voice that is deep, ironic, uncomfortable, and necessary.
LAIKA
Here, Celestini gives voice to a “poor Christ” living in a suburban flat, overlooking a parking lot, and to a homeless man sleeping among cardboard boxes. At his side is Pietro, tireless in the ordinariness of daily acts. If he were truly Jesus, he wouldn’t be able to redeem humanity—but only observe it and narrate its fragile, uncertain journey toward a world on the brink. Voiceover: Alba Rohrwacher