This year, Carthage Film Festival pays tribute to one of the most prominent names of Cinema history, Italian director Federico Fellini. « The world according to Federico Fellini » is presented as part of the « Parallel Section » of this 33rd edition, with a selection of seven films screening at different theaters. Among the films presented at this category, three of the directors’ signified classics ( « 8 and a half », « The Voice of the Moon », « Amarcord »), and another four recent documentaries about his life and legacy.
This honorary section opened today October 31st at 15h (Parnasse) with the film « On Fellini’s Footsteps », an informative stroll through his world, directed by Gerald Morin, Fellini’s lifelong friend, and aid for over a decade. In this documentary, the director embarks in a voyage on the Maestro’s tracks. Wandering through Rome and Cinecitta, he paints a touching portrait of the man, enriched by anecdotes from Fellini’s most important collaborators of the time. In addition, an exhibition of images taken from « The Book of Dreams » (published by the director himself), took place at 17h30 (Cité de la Culture), a special project held by filmmaker Habib Mestiri, with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute.
Fellini hit his stride in the Fifties and Sixties, with landmark films like “La Dolce Vita,” “La Strada,” and “The Nights of Cabiria” – chronicling the poverty of postwar Italy, the frivolities of the Italian aristocracy, the poignant lives of prostitutes and circus performers, and his own preoccupation with fantasy and dreams as interfering with reality. His greatest foils in his movies were Marcello Mastroianni – the suave Italian actor with the post-coital aura, widely regarded as his alter ego – and the Bambi-eyed, diminutive but animated actress Giulietta Masina, Fellini’s wife.
Fellini had won many citations in a long and prolific career, including 4 Oscars plus an honorary Oscar in 1993. He died soon after, followed by his wife’s passing in 1994.
