GENEVA, FEBRUARY 5 – Ahead of Federico Fellini’s 100thBirth Anniversary (2020), the exhibition Federico Fellini genius of the humanity will debut on February 18 at the United Nations in Geneva in the framework of the events to celebrate the election of Italy to the Human Rights Council. Organized by the Fellini Foundation with the Permanent Mission of Italy and the United Nations Cultural Activities, the exhibition aims to to revisit one of the most significant works of the cinema and the history of art with three related themes areas.
1. A world circus: the creative freedom of the artist who transgresses any form of authority or conventional means of expression. Fellini imposed on cinema an essential modernity and a fantasy off limits. The theme of the circus becomes a creative space where everything appears to be allowed. From La Strada(1954) to Otto e mezzo (1963), Fellini leaves the neo-realism and its social ideology to showcase a personal world. The reference to the circus still remains until the last movie (La voce della luna, 1990) as an area of liberty, fantasy and satire of the contemporary world.
2. The cinema behind the history: with his profound originality and poetry Fellini re-imagines the history. His movies propose subjective interpretations of crucial and sensitive periods, such as World War I (E la Nave va, 1983), the radical changes of 1960s or the great fears of the Cold War (La dolce vita, 1960), the Roman antiquity (Roma, 1972, Satyricon, 1969). Like Picasso, Fellini is the visionary artist of the XXth Century who is always questioning us about our memory of past, between nostalgia and oblivion.
3. Inside the Maestro’screative process: an interactive experience. This area is an opportunity for the visitors to approach thanks to a choice of original documents of the Fellini Foundation’s Collection (15,000 items) the creative process of the Maestro, step by step, from the beginning (drawings, script, casting) to the making of the film on the set. Involved in the process of creation, the visitors will be able to explore the inspiration and the artistic skills of a demiurge. Fellini was also a great painter of the humanity and he is firstly attracted to magnify the life of common people and often rejected persons (La Strada, 1954; Le notti di Cabiria, 1957; Il bidone, 1955). This capacity to transfigure the humanity with such a strong goodwill puts Fellini closer to Chaplin. “He was”, said Federico Fellini after Chaplin died, ”a sort of Adam from whom we all descended.” (@OnuItalia
