The Girl who Reached for the Stars

1515. After a theft gone wrong, Mercurio, a young trickster, is forced to flee the Holy City for Venice with his friends Zolfo and Benedetta. Elsewhere, Jewish con artist Isaac da Negroponte, another new arrival to Venice, poses as a doctor, and inadvertently finds his calling as a renowned physician. His beautiful daughter Giuditta, whilst trying to improve the hideous yellow hats that all Jews must wear, discovers a remarkable talent for fashion. All three of them are searching for a great stroke of good fortune amidst the street life of Venice, where poverty, discrimination, and the powerful gangs rule.

But when Mercurio and Giuditta fall in love, they come up against the bitter conflict between the Jewish and Christian communities. Mercurio’s friends abandon him, furious of his affection for a Jewish girl, and Isaac is resolutely against the match. Worst of all, the increasingly draconian laws of the city see Giuditta, her father and all the other Jews of Venice locked in the Ghetto Nuovo when night falls. Nonetheless Mercurio is determined to change who he is, and be with Giuditta, no matter what. But unbeknownst to Mercurio, an old enemy is following him, and will stop at nothing for revenge…

Using the creation of the first 16th century Jewish Ghetto as a backdrop, Luca di Fulvio tells a multi-faceted story of violence, prejudice, revenge, and greed but also of love, friendship, justice, and the courage to reach for the stars…