ROME - A blue Fiat 125 s in which Dante Ferretti, with sketch pad in hand, tells Federico Fellini about invented dreams. This is the image, reconstructed with the original car model, and the hyper-realistic mannequins made by Makinarium, which welcomes Fellini, Fellini, the permanent installation that opens from 1 February in the Cinecittà Studios on the occasion of the celebrations for the 100 years since the birth of the cinema master. A journey through three rooms, punctuated by posters and suggestions from Fellini's films, created by three-time Oscar-winning scenographers Dante Ferretti and his wife Francesca Lo Schiavo, historical collaborators of the filmmaker. In the installation, the dreams continue in the pleasure house inspired by The city of women, a brothel fairground with Marcello Mastroianni / Snaporaz, together with soubrettes in bikinis that descend from a red-edged slide.
Then we arrive at the Fulgor cinema, a re-enactment of the Rimini room where Fellini as a child developed his love for cinema. "Thanks to Federico I learned that you can do anything and that mistakes are also fundamental, because they allow you to make what you create even more real or more imaginative according to your point of view" explains Ferretti, who met Fellini in 1969 , on the set of Satyricon, as assistant to Luigi Scaccianoce, to then become his scenographer, from rehearsal of orchestra (1978) to the last film, La voce della luna (1990). Francesca Lo Schiavo was instead for Fellini set decorator from E la nave va (1983): "The meeting with Federico took place at the beginning of my career and totally opened my mind - she underlines -. It showed me that everything was possible , that there were no limits and this contrasted a lot with the subsequent experiences in American cinema, which even though he drank from Fellini, is much more tied to the rules. With Federico he improvised every day, without schemes. He had an incredible mind who has foreseen many things. I felt very small but so honored to have known him and to have been part of his working life ". The installation starts from a playful but also very fruitful habit of Ferretti with Fellini: telling him invented dreams.
"Sometimes to come to Cinecittà we would leave together with Canova, the bar in Piazza del Popolo and on the car trip he would always ask me, 'Dantino what did you dream of?'. At the beginning I told him the truth that I didn't remember my dreams , or I hadn't made them, but then I started to invent them - says the scenographer - thinking about his cinema or childhood memories in my city, Macerata. Like when I went to the seamstress, with my mother and under the table I happened to see women's underpants, legs, asses, or meetings with female figures at the market which she then put on in her films, from the fishmonger to the butcher ... ". For 'Felliniana' I "never thought about a set, but to recreate images that I had in my mind - adds Lo Schiavo -. From the arrival together with Cinecittà of Dante and Federico, to Marcello who in La città delle donne, discovered his female universe and the Fulgor cinema which represented Fellini's initiation into cinema ". A Fulgor "totally redesigned - Ferretti explains - The real one seems to me to have gray walls, I imagined it with a slightly American taste, creating a room that wraps you up and brings you to the screen". With Felliniana "more Cinecittà than you can - says Roberto Cicutto, president and president of Luce Cinecittà and new president of the Venice Biennale -. The installation enriches the exhibition offer of the studios and highlights the ability of this unique place to put together cultural, industrial and entertainment activities ". Will the homage to Fellini's 100th anniversary, which started last year at the Venice Film Festival, continue again this year? "I think so - Cicutto replies - but deciding is the task of the curator of the exhibition".