One of world cinema’s most exuberantly playful filmmakers, Federico Fellini’s career stretches from post-war neorealism to the MTV era. Although best known for his epochal early 60s films La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, he first came to international prominence as a director in the mid-1950s, thanks to back-to-back Oscar® wins for La Strada and Nights of Cabiria, both featuring unforgettable central performances from his wife and muse Giulietta Masina as well as the bittersweet music of Nino Rota.
Fellini’s kaleidoscopic, often sharply satirical narratives draw freely from his own personal obsessions, fantasies and memories and have gone on influence several generations of directors, from David Lynch to Pedro Almodóvar, Sofia Coppola to Paolo Sorrentino. This season marks the centenary of his birth and offers a rare opportunity to savour Fellini’s extraordinary body of work on the big screen.
This retrospective is part of the Fellini 100 official international tour, coordinated by the Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo (MiBACT), led by Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, who have provided the films. All films have been digitally restored by Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, Cineteca di Bologna and Cineteca Nazionale.
All text is courtesy of Dr. Pasquale Iannone, who will introduce selected screenings.
The White Sheik
Mon 20 Jan at 1.05pm and 8.55pm
Tue 21 Jan at 4.00pm and 6.15pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy 1951 / 1h27m / Digital / Italian with English subtitles / U – Contains one use of moderate language. / Cast: Alberto Sordi, Brunella Bovo, Leopoldo Trieste, Giulietta Masina, Lilia Landi.
A favourite of the great Orson Welles, Fellini’s first solo picture provided an early role for Italian comic actor Alberto Sordi (I Vitelloni) as the titular character, the star of a photo comic strip magazine. Newly-wed wife Wanda (Brunella Bovo) is one of his biggest fans and, while on her honeymoon with husband Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) in Rome, is determined to track him down.
La Strada
Fri 24 Jan at 1.00pm and 8.35pm
Sat 25 Jan at 1.00pm
Sun 26 Jan at 5.30pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy 1954 / 1h47m / Digital / Italian with English subtitles / PG – Contains mild violence, mild bad language, sex references. / Cast: Giulietta Masina, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, Aldo Silvani, Marcella Rovere, Livia Venturini.
An unassuming milestone of world cinema, Fellini’s heartbreaking tale of Gelsomina, a guileless young woman sold by her mother to travelling circus strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), made a star of his wife and muse Giulietta Masina. Rich in allegory, La Strada’s influence has been profound, stretching far beyond the medium of cinema (Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, for instance, both wrote songs inspired by the film).
The Clowns
Sun 26 Jan at 1.00pm
Mon 27 Jan at 6.10pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy/France/West Germany 1970 / 1h32m / Digital / Italian, French and German with English subtitles / U – Contains very mild bad language, sex references, comic violence. / Cast: Federico Fellini, Riccardo Billi, Gigi Reder, Tino Scotti, Valentini.
Fruit of his long-standing fascination with the figure of the clown, Fellini’s documentary was made for Italian TV and – as with his other 70s films such as Roma and Amarcord – sees the director affectionately recreate episodes from his childhood. Fellini appears in the film himself meeting several important figures – from La Dolce Vita’s Anita Ekberg to French circus historian Tristan Rémy.
Fellini’s Roma
Wed 29 Jan at 12.20pm and 6.00pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy/France 1972 / 1h59m / Digital / Italian with English subtitles / 15 / Cast: Peter Gonzales, Fiona Florence, Pa De Doses, Renato Giovannoli, Elisa Mainardi, Galliano Sbarra.
Despite originally hailing from the northern city of Rimini, Fellini was always closely associated with the Italian capital thanks to La dolce vita and his long association with the legendary Cinecittà film studios. Spanning several decades – from the Fascist era to the twilight of the hippie movement – Roma is the director’s deeply personal love letter to the Eternal City.
Amarcord
Thu 30 Jan at 5.50pm + Intro
Fri 31 Jan at 12.40pm and 5.55pm
Sat 1 Feb at 3.15pm
Sun 2 Feb at 2.00pm
Federico Fellini / Italy/France 1973 / 2h3m / Digital / Italian and Ancient Greek with English subtitles / 15 – Contains moderate sex and sexual references. / Cast: Pupella Maggio, Magali Noël, Armando Brancia, Ciccio Ingrassia, Nandino Orfei.
Winner of the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 1975 and one of Fellini’s most popular works, Amarcord (Romagnolo dialect for ‘I remember’) draws heavily on the director’s childhood in Rimini during the Fascist years. Mischievous, elegiac, satirical and often moving, the film features some jaw-dropping set-pieces together with one of composer Nino Rota’s most recognisable and wistful main themes.
Casanova
Mon 3 Feb at 2.30pm and 5.35pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy 1976 / 2h34m / Digital / Italian, French, German, English, Czech, Latin, Hungarian and Neapolitan with English subtitles / 15 – Contains moderate sex and brief strong nudity. / Cast: Donald Sutherland , Tina Aumont , Cicely Browne .
Shot on a vast scale in Rome’s Cinecittà studios with hundreds of extras and elaborate set and (Oscar-winning) costume design, Fellini’s Casanova is far from fawning hagiography. The director saw his adaptation of Giacomo Casanova’s memoirs as a chance to puncture the myth surrounding the legendary lothario. Key to Fellini’s approach was his fashioning of lead actor Donald Sutherland into what he colorfully termed a ‘sperm-filled waxwork.’
I Vitelloni
Wed 5 Feb at 6.00pm + Intro
Thu 6 Feb at 3.35 and 8.35
Federico Fellini / Italy/France 1953 / 1h47m / Digital / Italian with English subtitles / PG – Contains mild sex references. / Cast: Franco Interlenghi, Alberto Sordi, Franco Fabrizi, Leopoldo Trieste, Ricardo Fellini.
Five male friends do all they can to avoid the responsibilities of adulthood in Fellini’s deeply personal, wistfully comic third film as director. Featuring an achingly beautiful score by Fellini’s regular collaborator Nino Rota, I vitelloni was one of Stanley Kubrick’s favourites and also would go on to influence many of the filmmakers of the New American Cinema.
Nights of Cabiria – Le notti di Cabiria
Fri 7 Feb at 12.50pm and 6.00pm + Intro
Sat 8 Feb at 3.25pm and 6.00pm
Federico Fellini / Italy/France 1957 / 1h57m / Digital / Italian with English subtitles / PG – Contains mild language, sex and drug references / Cast: Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Amedeo Nazzari, Franca Marzi, Dorian Gray.
Co-written with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Nights of Cabiria sees Fellini bring Giulietta Masina centre stage once more for the story of an unfailingly optimistic prostitute and her misadventures in and around the Eternal City. The film was the inspiration for Neil Simon’s 1966 musical Sweet Charity which itself was adapted for the screen by Bob Fosse three years later.
8 1/2
Sun 9 Feb at 2.00pm and 7.35pm
Mon 10 Feb at 2.00pm and 8.10pm + Intro
Tue 11 Feb at 6.00pm
Wed 12 Feb at 3.05pm
Federico Fellini / Italy/France 1963 / 2h18m / Digital / Italian, English, French and German with English subtitles / 15 – Contains moderate sex references, hanging scene / Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk.
Fellini’s semi-autobiographical portrait of creative block is one of the great films about filmmaking. At the centre is Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, the beleaguered auteur who’s assailed by a host of problems both professional and personal. The film’s influence has been profound – Todd Haynes, for instance, paid it affectionate homage in his distinctly Fellinian portrait of Bob Dylan, I’m Not There (2007).
Juliet of the Spirits – Giulietta degli spiriti
Wed 12 at 8.10 + Intro
Thu 13 Feb at 3.05pm and 6.00pm
Federico Fellini / Italy/France/West Germany 1965 / 2h17m / Digital / Italian with English subtitles / 15 / Cast: Giulietta Masina, Mario Pisu, Sandra Milo, Valentina Cortese, Lou Gilbert.
Although he had worked with colour before – for an episode in Boccaccio 70 (1962) – Juliet of the Spirits was Fellini’s first colour feature. It sees the director reunited with his actress wife Giulietta Masina (La Strada, Nights of Cabiria) who plays a middle-class housewife seeking solace in the world of psychics and seers, figures that Fellini himself had always been fascinated by.
The Voice of the Moon
Sun 23 Feb at 12.55pm and 5.55pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy/France 1990 / 2h / Digital / Italian and Japanese with English subtitles / 12A – Contains moderate sex, sex references. / Cast: Roberto Benigni, Paolo Villaggio, Nadia Ottaviani, Marisa Tomasi.
Loosely adapted from a novel by Ermanno Cavazzoni, Fellini’s final film is a typically episodic narrative following the wanderings of Ivo (Roberto Benigni), a wide-eyed young man who’s released from a psychiatric hospital. The film’s many unmistakably Fellinian set pieces include a comically overheated love scene, a dazzling nightclub sequence set to the music of Michael Jackson and a beautiful, Georges Méliès-inspired finale.
Ginger & Fred – Ginger e Fred
Tue 25 Feb at 12.40pm and 5.55pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy/France/West Germany 1986 / 2h7m / Digital / Italian and English with English subtitles / 15 – Contains strong language and moderate sex references. / Cast: Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni, Franco Fabrizi, Frederick Von Ledenberg, Augusto Poderosi.
Originally intended as an episode for an anthology series, Ginger and Fred turned into the first feature-length film collaboration between Fellini and actor wife Giulietta Masina for more than twenty years. It sees her star opposite fellow Fellini regular Marcello Mastroianni as two ageing dancers who are brought out of retirement to perform on TV after decades away from the limelight.
Interview – Intervista
Fri 28 Feb at 3.30pm and 6.05pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy 1987 / 1h47m / Digital / Italian, Japanese and English with English subtitles / 15 / Cast: Federico Fellini, Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Sergio Rubini, Maurizio Mein, Lara Vandel.
Originally conceived to mark the 50th anniversary of Rome’s Cinecittà studios, Intervista evolved into a characteristically free-form piece of filmic autobiography from Fellini. The picture’s interconnected elements include the director planning an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s unfinished first novel Amerika, a recreation of his first experiences at Cinecittà and an emotional reunion of the stars of La Dolce Vita, Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg.
Il Bidone – The Swindlers
Mon 2 Mar at 6.00pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy/France 1955 / 1h53m / Digital / Italian with English subtitles / 12 – Contains mild violence and sex references. / Cast: Broderick Crawford, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart, Franco Fabrizi.
With audiences – and some producers – hoping for a sequel to his international breakthrough La Strada, Fellini opted instead for the downbeat story of three conmen, headed by the jowly Augusto (Broderick Crawford). With echoes of the antiheroes of John Huston films The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Asphalt Jungle, Il Bidone is ripe for (re)discovery.
Orchestra Rehearsal
Wed 4 Mar at 1.00pm and 6.10pm + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy/West Germany 1978 / 1h13m / Digital / Italian and German with English subtitles / 12A – Contains mild violence and sex references. / Cast: Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart, Giuletta Masina, Franco Fabrizi.
Shot in 16mm for US TV network NBC, 1969 documentary Fellini: A Director’s Notebook offers fascinating insight into Fellini’s tormented, long-gestating and ultimately unrealized project The Voyage of G. Mastorna. The following decade, Fellini made the political allegory Orchestra Rehearsal for Italy’s RAI, a TV film which featured composer Nino Rota’s final score for his long-time collaborator.
City of Women – La Città delle Donne
Sat 7 Mar at 17:35
Sun 8 Mar at 20:15
Federico Fellini / Italy/France 1980 / 2h25m / Digital / Italian with English subtitles / 18 – Contains strong nudity, sex references and one use of very strong language. / Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Prucnal, Bernice Stegers, Iole Silvani, Donatella Damiani.
Two decades after their first collaboration on La Dolce Vita, Fellini and star Marcello Mastroianni are reunited for a large-scale, free-form fantasia on gender and sexuality. The film showcases some of production designer Dante Ferretti’s most spectacular sets, including the home of prodigious womanizer Dr Katzone (Ettore Manni), a character based on famed Belgian author (and friend of Fellini) Georges Simenon.
And the Ship Sails On
Fri 13 Mar at 17:45 + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy and France / 1983 / 126 mins / Digital / Italian, German, Serbian, Russian with English subtitles / 12A / Cast: Freddie Jones, Barbara Jefford, Victor Poletti, Peter Cellier.
Production Designer Dante Ferretti followed up – and arguably outdid – his stunning work on City of Women with Fellini’s next feature. The story of a cruise ship sailing out from Naples to scatter the ashes of a famed opera singer in the weeks before WWI, the film was shot entirely in Cinecittà and is suffused with a dream-like air of melancholy.
Lights of Variety
Thu 19 Mar at 12:5 and 20.40 + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy/ 1950 / 100 mins / 35mm/ Italian, English and Russian / PG / Cast: Carla Del Poggio, Giulietta Masina, Peppino De Filippo, John Kitzmiller, Folco Lulli, Franca Valeri.
After several years working as a screenwriter and assistant on films such as Roberto Rossellini’s neorealist classics Rome Open City and Paisan, Fellini was given the chance to co-write and direct his first feature. It was inspired by the director’s memories of touring the Italian provinces with a variety show and offers a fascinating glimpse of themes and situations which would be more fully developed in later works.
Fellini – Satyricon
Mon 23 March at 20:30 + Intro
Federico Fellini / Italy and France / 1969 / 129 mins / Digital / Italian and Latin with English subtitles / 18 / Cast: Martin Potter, Hiram Keller, Max Born, Salvo Randone Mario Romagnoli.
This visually stunning and sensationalistic film is Fellini’s take on the decline of pagan Rome. Using the unfinished classical writings of Petronius as his guide, Fellini invents a dreamlike culture full of strange, distant characters and odd, grotesque events. Though the film lacks a definitive plot or narrative structure, its constants are Gitone and Encolpius, whose unsavoury encounters with sex, the theatre, and religion are the film’s focal point.
For more information and tickets please visit Filmhouse