Fellini, Federico

Federico Fellini
(January 20th, 1920, - October 31, 1993)

Federico Fellini (1920-1993), Italian film director, noted for such films as La Strada (1954) and 8 1/2 (1963). He was born in Rimini.

In 1938 he left his birthplace for Florence and Rome, where he worked as a writer and cartoonist and toured with a theater company.

One of his first significant film ventures was a collaboration with the Italian film director Roberto Rossellini on the script of Open City (1945).

Fellini then worked as a screenwriter and assistant director on several films before codirecting Variety Lights (1951) with Alberto Lattuada.

“What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one...”



He then directed The White Sheik (1952). Although these first two films were unsuccessful, his next film, I Vitelloni (1953) won international acclaim. It was the first of his probing, neorealistic studies of young drifters, circus people, and prostitutes.

La Strada and Nights of Cabiria (1957), both starring his wife, Giulietta Masina, won Academy Awards for best foreign film.

Fellini's subsequent films became more autobiographical and surrealistic, often incorporating spectacular and grotesque elements and forsaking linear narrative, to express subjectively the characters' experiences and thoughts.

He usually has written or cowritten his screenplays. The films 8 1/2 and Amarcord (1974) won two more Academy Awards for best foreign film.

The former portrays a filmmaker's quest for self-understanding; the latter reflects Fellini's childhood memories.

Among his other films are La Dolce Vita (1960), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969), The Clowns (1970), City of Women (1981), And the Ship Sails On (1983), and Ginger and Fred (1986).

1992   Intervista | Fellini's Intervista (1992)
1986   Ginger and Fred | Ginger e Fred (1986)
1983   E la nave va (And the Ship Sails On) (1983)
1980   City of Women | La Città delle donne (1980)
1979   Prova d'orchestra | Orchestra Rehearsal (1979)
1976   Fellini's Casanova | Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976)
1974   Amarcord (1974)
1972   Roma (1972)
1969   Fellini Satyricon (1969)
1968   Tre passi nel delirio (Spirits of the Dead 1968)
1965   Giulietta degli spiriti | Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
1963   8½ (1963)
1960   La Dolce vita (1960)
1957   Notti di Cabiria, Le (1957)
1955   Bidone, Il (Swindle, The) (1955)
1954   La Strada (1954)
1953   I vitelloni (1953)
1952   The White Sheik - Lo Sceicco bianco (1952)
1950   Luci del varietà (Variety Lights) (1950)