The Maestro, Federico Fellini, was born in Rimini on 20 January 1920. He expressed his vision of the world through masterpieces which he populated with real characters, grotesques and dreamlike figures, positioned in places that were always unexpected, leaving a wealth of films that have informed and guided many directors since. He spoke for the dispossessed in both The Road (La strada) and The Nights of Cabiria (Le notti di Cabiria), he contrasted the province of I Vitelloni with the enchantments of the city in La Dolce Vita, he often explored the sphere of the unconscious and dreams as in 8 ½, Juliet of the Spirits (Giulietta degli Spiriti), City of Women (La città delle donne) and the concentrate of irony that is Le tentazioni del Dottor Antonio, he showed us nostalgia with Amarcord, not without a pinch of regret for the present in Ginger e Fred. And then there is the extremely modern relevance of films like And the Ship goes (E la nave va).
Fellini often recreated the atmosphere and people of the Rimini of his childhood, transposing them to different settings as he believed that a correct distance was necessary to tell their stories. This is why many of his masterpieces were shot at Cinecittà, on specially built sets or in the environs of Rome. Thanks to Fellini, the Eternal City played herself and, equally successfully, other places too.
The following months will see many initiatives celebrating Fellini’s genius and we too wanted to pay him homage with several itineraries that take us to his places, some more famous, real, invented or rebuilt, than others.
Fellini’s Rimini (real or otherwise) gathers several famous places from the director’s hometown that were recreated elsewhere, mostly on soundstages.
For Fellini’s province in Rome, city and coast we have chosen several places in and around Rome used by the director as the setting for his recreation of provincial life.
The Great Beauty according to Federico demonstrates the essence of Rome through the places that the director chose to immortalize several times in his films.