To offer our audience a closer look at the work of the great Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, Art Stations Foundation presents a series of exhibits, which have been borrowed from the incredibly rich collection of the Fellini pour le Cinéma Foundation in Sion (Switzerland).
Out of the nearly 800 different objects documenting the work of Federico Fellini that the Fellini Foundation has in its possession, over 300 have been selected to be presented during the Polish exhibition. Among them are: about 50 faximilies of Fellini’s drawings, 130 photographs documenting the work on the film set and the building of different sets, manuscripts of letters, film props, costumes (from the film Casanova, an Oscar winner for Best Costume Design), screenplays with handwritten notes and comments from the director, production-related documents, the director’s personal notes, press clippings, books, magazines, film posters. The exhibition documents Fellini’s work on the films: I vitelloni (Vitelloni), L’Amore in citta (Love in the City), La Strada (The Road), Il Bidone (The Swindle and The Swindlers), La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life), Boccaccio’70, 8 1/2, Roma (Rome), Amarcord, Casanova, Prova d’Orchestra (Orchestra Rehearsal), E la Nave va (And the Ship Sales On). The variety of assorted objects represents various stages of the creation and production of Fellini’s films.
Fellini – film director, for the vast majority of viewers he remains associated exclusively with the film world but, as few realize, he was also a virtuoso of the pencil, a powerful and expressive draughtsman, or at times even a caricature drawer. Instead of making notes relating to particular scenes, he would make sketches, often also drawing how he imagined the characters from his films to look like. Before his ideas took on the form of moving images, they were always drawn with great skill on piece of paper.
The exhibition to which we would like to invite our audience is an attempt at representing the creative process behind Fellini’s films and revealing the mysteries of the artist’s imagination. It shows how an idea passing through the stage of a sketch, rough draught, screenplay and commentary, gradually develops into a motion picture. It presents Fellini as a truly multi-faceted – and at the same time multi-medial – artist, who while working on his films masterly uses many of his various artistic talents. Apart from its undeniable aesthetic and documentary value, it is worth emphasizing that the whole venture has also an underlying popularization purpose. It wouldn’t be a mistake to say that for many viewers the exhibition could be titled: “Fellini, the artist we’ve newer known before”.
This truly unique set of exhibits will travel across Poland for a year. First displayed during the 8th International Film Festival ERA NOWE HORYZONTY in the City Museum of Wrocław in July this year, then, as an accompanying event, it was presented on the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia (16th Sept – 12 Oct 2008) and on the Camerimage Festival in the Historical Museum of the City of Lódź. (7 Nov – 30 Dec 2008). Its next presentation is in Stary Browar in Poznań (15 Jan – 22 Feb 2009), after which it is going to travel to Warsaw (Mar – Apr 2009) and Krakow (May – Jun 2009).
The main Partner of of the event is the Fellini pour le Cinéma Foundation (Sion, Switzerland). Set up in 2001, it now possesses one of the biggest collections of documents and archival objects related to Fellini along with a rich film archive. Its founder is Gérald Morin, Federico Fellini’s private secretary and assistant, who donated to the Foundation his private archive gathered for about 30 years – the time when he was working with the world’s best filmmakers including, next to Fellini, such artists as: Marcel Carné, Robert Altman, Richard Donner, Jea-Jacques Annaud, Nikits Michalkow, or Francesco Rossi. At present the Foundation stores 15 000 documents and objects, almost 8 000 of which are connected with the work of Federico Fellini.
In co-operation with: Educ’art (Chamoson, Switzerland)