Minnesota Premiere - 4K Restoration
Provincial Leopoldo Trieste’s Roman honeymoon plans go sour when bride Brunella Bovo goes missing, even as his family (including an uncle, who’s “very high up in the Vatican”) is waiting in the hotel lobby for that first meeting, en route to a papal audience (along with 200 other couples). But super-fan Bovo’s first priority is to meet the “The White Sheik” (Sordi), fantasy hero of her beloved fumetti (comics, but illustrated with photographs). When Bovo finally arranges a tryst with her dream man, though, she finds he’s not what he’s cracked up to be.
The White Sheik is set against the world of the fotoromanzo (“photo novel”), photographed comics, most often love stories, which became popular just after World War II.
Fellini’s solo directorial debut (following 1950’s Variety Lights, which he codirected with Alberto Lattuada) also marked his first collaboration with composer Nino Rota, who’d create unforgettable scores for most of the director’s future masterworks.
Don’t miss this beautiful digital restoration of Fellini’s first solo feature film!
DIRECTOR Federico Fellini was born in Rimini, Italy in 1920. He moved to Rome in 1939 to attend law school at the request of his parents, but soon took a job with a humor magazine instead of attending class. In the years leading up to his personal cinematic breakthrough, Fellini worked drawing caricatures, selling cartoons and writing jokes for small papers. Fellini’s start in cinema began during World War II thanks to his growing circle of professional acquaintances in Rome. By 1947, Fellini had been nominated for an Oscar for his collaborative efforts on the screenplay titled Roma Città Aperta (Rome, Open City) and in 1951 he completed his first solo-directed film, Lo Sceicco Bianco (The White Sheik). Today, Federico Fellini is best known for his 1960 masterpiece La Dolce Vita. It was in that iconic film that Fellini invented the term “paparazzi”, and artistically critiqued the emerging celebrity culture. (Italy Magazine)
A cinematic pioneer, Federico Fellini is known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and reality and is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Besides La Dolce Vita (1961), his other award-winning films include I Vitelloni, (1953), La Strada (1956), Nights of Cabiria (1957), 8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Satyricon (1969), I clowns (1970), Amarcord (1974), Fellini’s Casanova (1976), Intervista (1987), The Voice of the Moon (1990) and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1992 Academy Awards.
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