
La Dolce Vita in Rimini
3 November 2021/ Summer 2021 saw the grand opening of a new museum dedicated by the town of Rimini to the great master of cinema, Federico Fellini /
You cannot see some places without your mind going to the famous people who lived there or dedicated their work to them: if you visit New York you’ll think about Woody Allen, if you go to Verona you’ll think about Romeo and Juliet. And if you visit the town of Rimini, in Romagna, you’ll think about the great master of cinema who was born there: Federico Fellini. To Fellini the town dedicated a new multi-location museum that opened in August; it’s the biggest museum ever dedicated to his genius and it is meant to have the same role and relevance for Rimini that the Guggenheim Museum has for Bilbao.
“The Fellini Museum – as one can read in the official presentation of this project – does not intend to interpret Fellini’s cinema as a work in itself completed or a homage to memory, but to enhance the cultural heritage of one of the most illustrious directors in the history of cinema.” To do so, it brings together interactive exhibits, projections of clips from his movies, a documentary section with stage drawings and other objects and pictures, but also a special focus on the places and spaces that the Italian director loved and interpreted.
Indeed, the structure of the Fellini Museum includes three key points of the historic center in Rimini: Castel Sismondo, a 15th-century fortress based on a project made in collaboration with Filippo Brunelleschi; Palazzo del Fulgor, an 18th-century building where, on the ground floor, you can find the cinema with the same name, immortalized in Amarcord; and Piazza Malatesta, a large urban area with green spaces, open-air theaters and art installations. The project was realized under the artistic direction of Studio Azzurro, with architectural and exhibit design by Orazio Carpenzano and Studio Tommaso Pallaria, while the visual and graphic identity was completely developed by Milan-based Studio FM.
The result is an extremely modern take on a museum, with many spaces and offers to explore. Castel Sismondo, for instance, includes a room dedicated to the extendable arm of the camera dolly, which was the tool that best interpreted Fellini’s expressiveness. The arm is mounted on a blue van that recalls a scene filmed on the Great Ring Road in the movie Roma, and on the top of the van are three video-projectors showing this and other movie scenes where Fellini used the dolly, such as Marcello Mastroianni ambling unsteadily in movies like La dolce vita or 8 e ½. In another room, visitors face a magic mirror that shows a gallery of the famous “envelopes” where the Fellini kept the “faces” and their corresponding background actors, or the sketches he used to give directions to costume and set designers. Then you have a music room, where a huge steel sphere, recalling the movie Orchestra Reharsal, is dedicated to the musicians and composers who worked with Fellini, including Nino Rota, who worked with the great director from 1952 to 1979.
The second location, the Palazzo del Cinema Fulgor, is important because here is located the oldest cinema theater in Rimini, the place where Fellini saw a movie for the first time and fell in love with this art. The cinema is still active and shows independent art movies, while the top three floors…
Continue reading Games & Parks Industry October 2021, page 88
Foto Courtesy: Museo Fellini, ph. Lorenzo Burlando
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