Five films, a retrospective of Fellini, will mark the 100th anniversary of the great director’s birth at the Bulgarian film festival Kinomania. The occasion was in January 2020, but the festival managed to hold only its summer edition last year. The autumn edition, postponed several times, will open on April 8.
Traditionally, the accompanying program of the film forum includes a retrospective of a famous director, which is broadcast a week before the official opening. This year, the beginning is on April 1, the first day after the lifting of the restrictive measures. Between April 1 and 6, the Lumiere and Odeon cinemas will include Casanova, 8½, Rome, Open City, Satyricon and La dolce vita. The details of the program can be found here.
Kinomania will also feature director Selma Dell’Olio’s Fellini of the Spirits, a special documentary produced on the great director’s anniversary that traces his quest for the spiritual, the mysterious, and the esoteric.
La dolce vita, which can be seen on April 1 and 2, is one of Fellini’s most remarkable works. The film, starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg and Anouk Aimée, won a Palme d’Or and an Oscar. The story revolves around the failed writer Marcello, who, along with his photojournalist, works for a yellow newspaper and immerses himself entirely in the “dolce vita” of a secular, cinematic, intellectual Rome. It was from the film that the word “paparazzi” was born, which consequently became extremely popular.
Again with an Oscar, but in the foreign language film category, is 8½, starring Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée and Sandra Milo. The film is about a famous director who sought peace and solitude in a prestigious spa resort, where reality and imagination mix in his mind. The screenings are on April 2 and 3.
The American Film Academy Award for Directing and the Golden Globe for Foreign Language Film went to another selected film — Satyricon, inspired by Petronius’ work, in which he criticizes the decline of Ancient Rome with his ruthless, witty irony. The screenings of Satyricon are scheduled for April 3 and 4.
Rome, Open City, also awarded a Golden Globe for a foreign language film, is another of Fellini’s iconic titles. The public can watch it on April 4 and 5. Lively and imaginative, the film is a portrait of the Eternal City in different periods of the director’s life.
Casanova, which you can watch on April 5 at Lumiere and on April 6 at the Odeon, presents the eponymous lover as a terrifying person, deserving pity. After a sex scandal, he finds himself in prison, but a successful escape to Paris gives him new strength for life. The film stars Donald Sutherland and won an Oscar for costumes and a BAFTA for set design and costumes.
The retrospective is carried out in partnership with the Italian Cultural Institute.
Fellini is the author of 24 films and has an Oscar for overall creativity, awarded to him in 1993.
The official opening of Kinomania, for now, remains April 8 with the film Fear by Ivaylo Hristov.
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