Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini is an Italian screenwriter and film director. He was born on January 20, 1920, in Rimini, Italy to Urbano Fellini and Ida Barbiani. His brother, Ricardo Fellini, is also a director of documentaries, while her sister, Maddalena Fellini, is an actress. During his primary years, he studied in an institution managed by the nuns of San Vincenzo in Rimini. He later attended Carlo Tonni Public School. Fellini is an attentive student, who usually spent time drawing and staging puppet shows.

He also likes to read II corriere dei piccolo, a popular magazine for children that reproduce the traditional cartoons of popular cartoonists and comic strip like Winsor McCay, Frederick Burr Opper, and George McManus. He discovered the Grand Guignol theater, the circus, and films. In 1939, Fellini took a law course at the University of Rome, but only to please his parents. However, there are no records of him shown that he ever attended a class. He met Rinaldo Geleng, who had helped him in drawing sketched of café patrons and restaurants. Eventually, he has worked as a cub reporter on II Piccolo and II Popolo di Roma.

He joined the editorial board of the satirical magazine, Marc’Aurelio, where he had a regular column entitled “But Are You Listening?” His job in Marc’Aurelio gave him a steady earning from 1939 until 1942. During those times, he had a chance to interact with different writers and scriptwriters, which led him to enter the show business. Fellini became popular for his unique style and was recognized as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. Even his films were ranked as the greatest films of all time. The Sight and Sound magazine ranked his 1963 semi-autobiographical comedy drama film, 8½, the tenth greatest film of all time.

His career has spanned for almost five decades and earned him several awards and recognitions including the Palme d’Or Award for his 1960 drama film, La Dolce Vita and an honorary Lifetime Oscar Achievement Award at the 65th Annual Academy Awards in L.A. Some of his hit films also include La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Satyricon (1969), Amarcord (1973), and Fellini’s Casanova (1976). His first major exhibitions were held in Brussels and New York Click to look into! >> Read More... in 1982, where most of his sketches were based on his own dreams.

In 1985, he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, which was held at the 42nd Venice Film Festival. He is also the first non-American who earned the Annual Award for Cinematic Achievement by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. In 1993, he was admitted to the Cantonal Hospital in Zurich to undergo angioplasty on his femoral artery. However, two months later, he suffered a stroke while in the Grand Hotel in Rimini. His body was half paralyzed and he was moved to Ferrara to rehabilitate. To be closer to his wife, he moved to Policlinico Umberto I in Rome but suffered a second stroke, which led to a coma. On October 31, 1993, he died in Rome at the age of 73. His memorial service was attended by over 70,000 people.