Fellini Festival

On June 12 and 13, 2025 at the Italian Cultural Institute in Prague (IIC), the “FELLINI FESTIVAL / Homage to Fellini, the genius who speaks to new generations” was held.

Two event evenings, two special appointments dedicated to Federico Fellini, the unforgettable master of Italian cinema, one of the most visionary and influential directors in the history of the seventh art. Born in Rimini in 1920 and passed away in Rome in 1993, with an unmistakable, dreamlike and often autobiographical style, Fellini directed masterpieces that have marked the history of cinema, such as “La Strada” (1954); “Le Notti di Cabiria” (1957); “La Dolce Vita” (1960); 8½ (1963); Amarcord (1973). Throughout his career, Fellini received numerous awards and honors, including five Academy Awards, a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival. Representing him is Francesca Fabbri Fellini, the only heir by DNA, as she claims, of Maestro Fellini. Francesca, with passionate recollections and researched anecdotes, created an intimate and evocative atmosphere in which Uncle Federico’s intangible creativity seemed to hover.

The evenings offered an opportunity to explore Fellini’s dreamlike and visionary world through the screening of 8 1/2, short films and two previously unreleased documentaries, made with the collaboration of established directors and new talents from the Italian film scene. A living testimony to Fellini’s legacy and the influence of his unmistakable style on today’s cinema.

“We immediately welcomed with great enthusiasm the proposal to present the project Homage to Fellini in our Institute”-said Marialuisa Pappalardo, director of the Prague IIC- “Fellini’s legacy is not a memory of the past, but a living and inexhaustible source of suggestions; we will have proof of this precisely thanks to the works, so diverse, of young Italian film talents, the directors of tomorrow who, with their gaze, will make us deepen our knowledge of one of the greatest authors in the history of cinema.”

Screened were: the documentary “Fellini and beyond” by Francesco Gallo and Sabrina La Macchia and the four-episode medium-length film “Torna, resta” by directors Mino Capuano, Marco Di Filippo, Tommaso Banti, Ludovico Bosica and Alain Parroni. And more: “Amarfellini” by Veronica Citi, which was followed by “Orrendi scarabocchi” (animation) by Virginia Ardizzone and Giulia Brighenti, “Omaggio a F.” short film by Daniele Ciprì, “Rome” (audiovisual) by Marco and Aurelia Pietrolini, “Four and a Quarter” (animation) by Laura Ettori, “Satyricon: ubique latens” by Gabriele Gianni and Giulio Pernice, and the trailer for the documentary “Fellini without Angels” by Serena Lazzaro and Tommaso Banti.

“An ideal temporal path,” says Fabio Mongelli, “that starts from a homage to silent cinema and goes all the way to video made with artificial intelligence. Thus was fully expressed the meaning of a festival capable of uniting established filmmakers, young filmmakers and students, presenting short fiction, documentary, animation, audiovisual, stop motion and computer animation works.”

“Homage to Fellini, the genius who speaks to the new generations” is the second foreign stop, after Madrid, of the GRAND TOUR AFAM – scientific coordination Fabio Mongelli and coordination for the international part Genny Di Bert, who says: “Festival Fellini, inaugurated in Prague, wants to confirm the vocation of the Italian arts to spread messages of peace and brotherhood among peoples in the world, which are also recognized precisely in the value of artistic expressions at the highest level.”

The Prague leg was organized in collaboration with theItalian Cultural Institute in Prague and sponsored by the Italian Embassy, with support from the Eleutheria Foundation in Prague and theFAMU Academy. RUFA Academy, Laba Academy Florence, Poliarte of Ancona and Saint Louis College of Music participated.

Participating with the event’s artistic director Raffaele Simongini were Christian Angeli, Mino Capuano, Alessandro Carpentieri, Pietro Ciccotti, Daniele Ciprì, Veronica Citi, Laura Ettori, Gabriele Gianni, Alain Parroni, and Giulio Pernice.