Federico Fellini

Filmography

Early Years
After running away from home at the age of twelve to work in a circus, he attended the local grammar school in Rimini, earning at the same time his first money as a caricaturist of famous actors and vacationers.
From the early months of 1938 he began working with the "Domenica del Corriere", which published a number of his comic sketches. In January 1939 he moved to Rome with his mother, with the excuse of studying Law at the university; instead he started working for "Marc'Aurelio", a satirical magazine, becoming popular through hundreds of sketches signed "Federico".
Before the outbreak of the war he became friends with Aldo Fabrizi writing monologues for him, and collaborated with a radio variety where he met young actress Giulietta Masina (1921-1994), whom he married in October 1943. They will only have one son, who died a month after birth.
By participating to the scripts of Fabrizi's films, he began his adventure in the cinema as an author and screenwriter of great movies, including "Roma città aperta" (1945) and "Paisà" (1946) starting a fruitful friendship with Roberto Rossellini.
He became associated with playwright Tullio Pinelli, and they became among the most popular scriptwriters of the time, working with Pietro Germi and Alberto Lattuada. The latter wanted him as an assistant director in Luci del varietà (1950).

His great years
"La strada" followed in 1954, starring his wife Giulietta, an Academy Award-winning movie, the first in a series that will place Fellini among the great film masters in cinema history.
The following years he made masterpieces as "Le notti di Cabiria" (1957), which earned him a second Oscar, "La dolce vita" (1959), Gold Palm at Cannes, "8 e 1/2" (1963) which won him his third Oscar. The main protagonist of the last two movies was Marcello Mastroianni, Fellini's favorite actor.
There followed Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), Amarcord (1973, his fourth Oscar), Il Casanova (1976), Prova d'orchestra (1979), Ginger and Fred (1985), Intervista (1987), awarded the Cannes prize and the Moscow Grand Prix).
In 1990 Federico Fellini directed his last movie, almost a spiritual tribute: "La voce della luna", a poetic reflection on the absurdity of the present and an invitation to silence.
Academy Award 1993
It was in the winter of 1993, and he jokingly said he expected the recognition, but in 20 years' time... he passed away exactly 20 years ago, on 31 October of that same year, and Giulietta Masina followed him in March 1994 - a wonderful story of love and shared passion for the cinema world.
Suggested links
- A vintage interview to Fellini on the set of La Dolce Vita
- Fondazione Federico Fellini, the main cultural organization on the director, founded in 1995 by his sister, Maddalena Fellini, and the Comune of Rimini.
Cultural Heritage
Italian Genealogy
Info on Italian Regions
