Vintage Sundays/ Federico Fellini at FACT
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
Picturehouse at FACT celebrate the centenary of Italian cinema legend Federico Fellini with a five film retrospective. Along with the likes of Ingmar Bergman and Jean-Luc Godard, Fellini is one of the defining figureheads of classic international arthouse cinema. The director’s approach differed and evolved across the decades as he moved from the post-war neorealist tradition, through extravagant dreamlike reveries to baroque nostalgia-tinged masterpieces. Throughout, he integrated autobiographical elements, revisiting scenes, places, memories and fantasies of his life.
FACT’s season starts with an early work in the form of 1953’s I Vitelloini (Sun 8 March) — the story of five young men looking to disrupt postadolescent routine in a provincial town on the Adriatic coast. From there, 1957’s Academy Award-winning Nights of Cabiria takes us to Rome (Sun 15 March) as a prostitute searches for love. Next, it’s Fellini’s most acclaimed films. Wandering reporter Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni) experiences Rome’s hedonistic excesses in 1960’s La Dolce Vita (Sun 22 March), while Mastroianni plays a version of the director in 1963’s surrealist masterpiece 8 ½ (Sun 29 March). The season comes to a close on Sun 5 April, with a film of suspicion and seances: 1965’s Juliet of the Spirits.
