The extraordinary journey of this actor, a leading figure in Italian and European cinema for over three decades, brings us back to the heart of the most demanding auteur cinema, as well as to the most inventive, joyful, and iconic popular films. With a unique sense of style and a casual elegance, he became one of the most accomplished embodiments of the screen actor.
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1964
Guido Anselmi, a film director, is stuck for inspiration in the middle of writing a screenplay. He withdraws to a health resort. His wife Louisa, his mistress Carla, his friends, his actors and his producer come to pay a visit. They all want him to finish writing the film. He takes refuge in endless daydreaming. Wandering between dream and reality, Fellini plays out his own anxiety toward creation.
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini was one of the greatest Italian writers and directors of the 20th century, and one of the most illustrious filmmakers in the history of cinema. He won the Palme d'or at Cannes in 1960 for La dolce vita, and took home the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film four times (La strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8½, and Amarcord), a record he shares with his compatriot Vittorio De Sica. Initially associated with neo-realism, Fellini’s work evolved over the course of the 1960s toward a unique approach related to European modernism, a movement associated with Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard and Andrei Tarkovsky. His films grew increasingly to embrace a proliferation of themes, deliberate artifice and the complete erasure of boundaries between dream, imagination, hallucination and reality. In 1993, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him a lifetime achievement award in recognition of his place as one of the screen’s master storytellers.