Federico Fellini (; January 20, 1920 – October 31, 1993 ) was an Italian film director and scriptwriter.

In November 1942, Fellini was sent to Libya, occupied by Fascist Italy, to work on the screenplay of I cavalieri del deserto ( Knights of the Desert, 1942 ), directed by Osvaldo Valenti and Gino Talamo.

The apolitical Fellini was finally freed of the draft when an Allied air raid over Bologna destroyed his medical records.

Working as both screenwriter and assistant director on Rossellini ’ s Paisà ( Paisan ) in 1946, Fellini was entrusted to film the Sicilian scenes in Maiori.

The statue of Christ flown by helicopter over Rome to Saint Peter's Square was inspired by an actual media event on May 1, 1956, which Fellini had witnessed.

A major discovery for Fellini after his Italian neorealism period ( 1950 – 1959 ) was the work of Carl Jung.

Bernhard ’ s focus on Jungian depth psychology proved to be the single greatest influence on Fellini ’ s mature style and marked the turning point in his work from neorealism to filmmaking that was “ primarily oneiric ”.

Organized by his publisher Diogenes Verlag in 1982, the first major exhibition of 63 drawings by Fellini was held in Paris, Brussels, and the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York.

On September 6, 1985 Fellini was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 42nd Venice Film Festival.

( 1998 ), a Spanish novel by Puerto Rican writer Giannina Braschi, features a dream sequence with Fellini that was inspired by 8½.

That same year, he gave a typically energetic and revealing interview to Canadian filmmaker Damian Pettigrew for Fellini: I'm a Born Liar ( 2002 ), a cinematic portrait of the maestro that was nominated for Best Documentary at the European Film Awards, Europe's equivalent of the Oscars.

The first recipient was the Italian neorealist drama La Strada, which helped establish Federico Fellini as one of the most important European directors.

A director like Federico Fellini is thus considered to have never officially won an Academy Award of Merit during his lifetime, even though four of his films received the Foreign Language Film Award ( the only Academy Award that Fellini personally won was his 1992 Honorary Award ).

Federico Fellini was Allen's first choice to appear in the cinema lobby scene because his films were under discussion, but Allen chose cultural academic Marshall McLuhan after both Fellini and Luis Buñuel declined the cameo.

The actress, Carmilla Salvatorelli ( not " Carmello "), was " a little midget " Anger had met through Federico Fellini.

It was Fassbinder's first effort to create what he declared he aspired to: a cinematic statement of the human condition that would transcend national boundaries as the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini had done.

In 1969, Federico Fellini made a film, Fellini Satyricon, that was loosely based upon the book.

Nino Rota ( December 3, 1911 – April 10, 1979 ) was an Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti.

The relationship between Fellini and Rota was so strong that even at Fellini's funeral Giulietta Masina, Fellini's wife, asked trumpeter Mauro Maur to play Rota's Improvviso dell ' Angelo in the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome.

He was executive producer for the television special The Last Frontier ( 1974 ); and he produced and directed a television special, Fellini: Wizards, Clowns and Honest Liars.

Unbeknownst to him, Katharine Hepburn was in the audience, and after seeing it and liked it, she wrote to Fellini saying she had seen a wonderful show based on his movie.

His father, Urbano Fellini ( 1894 – 1956 ), born to a family of Romagnol peasants and small landholders from Gambettola, moved to Rome in 1915 as a baker apprenticed to the Pantanella pasta factory.

Fellini, la Grande Parade exposition on the work of Federico Fellini in the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume | musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris

Deciding on a career as a caricaturist and gag writer, Fellini travelled to Florence in 1938 where he published his first cartoon in the weekly 420.

Fellini eventually found work as a cub reporter on the dailies Il Piccolo and Il Popolo di Roma but quit after a short stint, bored by the local court news assignments.

Among his collaborators on the magazine ’ s editorial board were the future director Ettore Scola, Marxist theorist and scriptwriter Cesare Zavattini, and Bernardino Zapponi, a future Fellini screenwriter.

Fellini and Ruggero Maccari, also on the staff of Marc ’ Aurelio, began writing radio sketches and gags for films.

Not yet twenty and with Fabrizi ’ s help, Fellini obtained his first screen credit as a comedy writer on Mario Mattoli ’ s Il pirata sono io ( The Pirate's Dream ).

Fellini welcomed the assignment as it allowed him " to secure another extension on his draft order ".

Fellini and Giulietta hid in her aunt ’ s apartment until Mussolini's fall on July 25, 1943.

After the Allied liberation of Rome on June 4, 1944, Fellini and Enrico De Seta opened the Funny Face Shop where they survived the postwar recession drawing caricatures of American soldiers.

He became involved with Italian Neorealism when Roberto Rossellini, at work on Stories of Yesteryear ( later Rome, Open City ), met Fellini in his shop proposing he contribute gags and dialogue for the script.

Aware of Fellini ’ s reputation as Aldo Fabrizi ’ s “ creative muse ”, Rossellini also requested he try to convince the actor to play the role of Father Giuseppe Morosini, the parish priest executed by the SS on April 4, 1944.

Establishing a close working relationship with Alberto Lattuada, Fellini co-wrote the director ’ s Senza pietà ( Without Pity ) and Il mulino del Po ( The Mill on the Po ).

Fellini also worked with Rossellini on the anthology film L ' Amore ( 1948 ), co-writing the screenplay and in one segment titled, " The Miracle ", acting opposite Anna Magnani.

After travelling to Paris for a script conference with Rossellini on Europa ' 51, Fellini began production on The White Sheik in September 1951, his first solo-directed feature.

Fellini directed La strada based on a script completed in 1952 with Pinelli and Flaiano.

Based partly on stories told to him by a petty thief during production of La strada, Fellini developed the script into a con man ’ s slow descent towards a solitary death.

To incarnate the role ’ s “ intense, tragic face ”, Fellini ’ s first choice had been Humphrey Bogart but after learning of the actor ’ s lung cancer, chose Crawford after seeing his face on the theatrical poster of All the King ’ s Men ( 1949 ).

During the autumn, Fellini researched and developed a treatment based on a film adaptation of Mario Tobino ’ s novel, The Free Women of Magliano.

Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starring Giulietta Masina, the film took its inspiration from news reports of a woman ’ s decapitated head retrieved in a lake and stories by Wanda, a shantytown prostitute Fellini met on the set of Il Bidone.