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Light, Camera, Fellini

January, 29 2026

Light, Camera, Fellini

La Dolce Vita and the moment Italian cinema went global

Italian cinema has always known how to turn real life into unforgettable stories. But if there’s one name that captures its imagination and flair, it’s Federico Fellini. Born on January 20, Fellini didn’t just make films. He created worlds, characters and images that still shape how we picture Italy on screen today.

World Italian Cinema Day falls on the same date as his birthday, and while the celebrations may be over, the moment feels like the perfect excuse to rewind. Not for a full film-history lecture, don’t worry (though you’ll find it fascinating, we bet!)  but for a closer look at the era that defined Italian cinema’s global glow, the people who made it possible, and the places that helped it all happen – including one sunny little island in the Tyrrhenian Sea we’re particularly fond of…Ready to come on a bit of a cinematic trip with us? 

Before Fellini: When Cinema Got Real

Ladri di Biciclette (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)

Before the glamour, Italian cinema found its voice in the streets. Post-war neorealism stripped filmmaking back to the essentials, real locations, everyday struggles and stories shaped by survival. Films like Roma città aperta and Ladri di biciclette captured a country rebuilding itself, emotionally and economically.

This movement mattered because it changed cinema forever. It proved that ordinary lives were worth watching and that truth could be as compelling as fantasy. And while Fellini would later move in a very different direction, neorealism laid the emotional groundwork for everything that followed.

Fellini and the La Dolce Vita Moment

La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)

By the late 1950s, Italy was changing fast, and so was its cinema. Enter Fellini. Before La Dolce Vita turned him into a global name, Federico Fellini had already carved out a very personal corner of Italian cinema. His early career unfolded in the 1950s, moving steadily away from strict neorealism and toward the emotional, character-driven storytelling that would define his work.

His breakout came with I Vitelloni, a semi-autobiographical portrait of small-town life and youthful inertia. Set in a provincial seaside town, the film follows a group of aimless friends drifting between bravado and boredom. It was sharper and more ironic than classic neorealism, and it introduced one of Fellini’s recurring themes: characters caught between dreams of escape and fear of growing up.

With La Strada, Fellini found international recognition. The story of fragile Gelsomina and brutal strongman Zampanò unfolded like a modern fable, blending social realism with symbolism and deep emotional pull. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and marked Fellini’s clear departure from realism toward a more poetic, human-centred cinema.

That emotional line continued in Le notti di Cabiria, where Giulietta Masina’s unforgettable performance as a Roman sex worker searching for dignity earned another Oscar. By then, Fellini had fully established his voice: compassionate, theatrical and increasingly interested in inner lives over external realities. 

Federico Fellini during the filming of Le notti di Cabiria

To that end, La Dolce Vita didn’t come out of nowhere. When it debuted in 1960, it arrived after a decade of quietly rewriting the rules.

In it, the Rimini-born director captured a Rome caught between pleasure and emptiness, fame and fatigue. The film’s images became instant icons, Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain, nights that blur into mornings, glamour edged with melancholy.

Fellini pushed further with 8½ in 1963, turning creative doubt into cinema itself. More masterpieces followed: Amarcord, Roma, Juliet of the Spirits. His films weren’t about realism anymore. They were about memory, imagination and the chaos of modern life. Italian cinema had entered its golden age, and the world was watching.

Angelo Rizzoli, Fellini and the Ischia Connection

Behind many of these films was Angelo Rizzoli, one of the great figures of Italian cultural life in the 1950s and 60s. A visionary publisher and film producer, Rizzoli believed deeply in cinema and invested heavily in the people who shaped it, including Fellini.

But his influence wasn’t limited to studios and sets. Rizzoli also fell in love with Ischia, transforming the island into a cultural and cinematic magnet. Through major investments in tourism and hospitality, he helped turn Ischia into a gathering place for directors, actors and writers. Fellini was among those drawn to the island, and enthralled by its light and theatrical landscape. Others included Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Maria Callas, and William Holden, just to name a few. A pretty impressive roster, if you ask us. 

Scene from Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1964)

To many of them, Ischia became more than a backdrop. It offered a pause between projects, where ideas could take shape and creative friendships grew naturally. There, Fellini simply felt at home. 

Why It Still Matters Today

Italian cinema has continued to evolve, but the Fellini era remains a reference point. Its blend of artistry and unapologetic imagination still resonates, echoed decades later in films like Paolo Sorrentino’s La grande bellezza, which came out in 2013.

Celebrating Fellini means celebrating a moment when cinema and place aligned perfectly. When films didn’t just reflect Italy, they helped define it. And when an island like Ischia quietly became part of the story.

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