Federico Fellini's Birthday
On January 20, 1920, in Italy, in the small city of Rimini, a boy was born in the family of the salesman Urbano Fellini, who was named Federico. And after 73 years, the international airport of this city was named "Federico Fellini".
Federico got the usual education for children of the middle-class families in a monastery school. Being a very capable student, Federico had enough free time, which he devoted to two favorite activities: visiting circus performances and drawing cartoons. Far from the ordinary ability of Federico to draw determined his first profession as a cartoonist, which he began to earn a living from 18 years old. And this profession brought him to the cinema at the age of 20. First, as a cartoonist and author of gags, and eventually as a screenwriter.
Like most Italian youths of that time, Federico was a member of the Avanguardista, the youth organization of the Italian fascist party. As a screenwriter in 1942, Federico Fellini was involved in the work on the propaganda film “I cavalieri del deserto (Knights of the Desert)” dedicated to the exploits of the Italian army fighting in Libya. Federico worked on this film with Vittorio Mussolini, the son of Benito Mussolini. By the time the film was completed, the defeat of the Italian fascist army in the struggle against the allied forces was absolutely obvious, as a result of which the film was ultimately never released.
In 1943, when the fascist regime in Italy tried to gather its last forces to confront the allied forces, Federico, in order to avoid mobilization, hid for several months in the apartment of his aunt's bride, Giulietta Masina. Soon after the fall of Mussolini’s regime, Federico and Giulietta got married and lived together for exactly 50 years and one day, until Fellini’s death on October 31, 1993. Giulietta survived the spouse for only 5 months.
The family life of Federico Fellini and Giulietta Masina was marred by two tragedies. In early 1944, Giulietta had a miscarriage due to an accidental fall. And in 1945, a son was born to the couple, named Pierfederico. But the baby died of encephalitis, not having lived a month. Federico and Giulietta had no more children. But then this married couple gave the world several movie masterpieces for all time!
In total, Federico Fellini during his filmmaking career, which began in 1950, independently shot 18 full-length feature films. Plus, at the very beginning of his directorial career, Fellini shot one movie together with Alberto Lattuada. And also Fellini shot three segments for movie almanacs.
Federico Fellini's 4 films were awarded the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Films. At the same time, Fellini himself was nominated 12 times for the Academy Award as the best director, but he never received this award. And only 7 months before his death, he was awarded an honorary Oscar. Of the total number of films made by Federico Fellini, 7 films are included in the Golden Thousand. Thanks to this, Federico Fellini is included in the list of 100 greatest world film directors, compiled by FilmGourmand.
As usual, we want to remind fans of the work of the great filmmaker frames from his best films included in the Golden Thousand.
