With Arnoldo Ninchi (Federico) and Valeria Ciangottini (Giulietta). And with Francesca Airaudo, Alberto Guiducci, Marco Giulio Magnani, Daniela Piccari and Andrea Tamagnini. Text and direction by Bruno Sacchini.

 

by Bruno Sacchini

In the year of grace 1983 the administrative council of the city of Rimini, in a burst of pride and gratitude towards the Maestro, in recognition of his contribution to its fame, decreed to donate him a house on the Porto Canale. The whole thing, played up with great pomp, fanfare and promotional clamour, came to naught. In fact, due to bureaucratic impediments the house was never purchased, and the owner, who had offered it vanished into the mists of a deal that nobody ever understood if ever there was a serious intention to carry out.
Hence the idea of a piece, actually a pochade, where Federico Fellini, at the height of his popularity storms into Rimini. In the space of a day – inspired by the model of the domestic harem in 8½ – Fellini with his wife Gulietta comes to take possession of the home, in a whirlwind of misunderstandings and ghostly projections, politicians in the style of Don Camillo and Peppone and reincarnations of the Fellini archetype characters like the Arzdora, Saraghina, and the child clarinet player. In short, an invention on the myth of the character of Federico Fellini as no one has ever had the courage – or rather the boldness – to undertake. An iridescent, comical tale on the mediatic obsessions and fantasies of the Maestro in his relationship with the female world, with politics and with mystery, in that intriguing and most delicate node of the conflict between truth and fiction, which from 8½ onwards constitutes that fascinatingly unresolved provocation in cinematic discourse, his own and that of everyone else.
Bruno Sacchini

Bruno Sacchini
Born in Rimini in 1945, in 1961 and 1962 won the Mario Fabbri prize for journalism. For his works Vida es…, Tre palle un soldo, Regressioni and Saul 2 he won the Riccione and Vallecorsi drama prizes. For RAI he was the scriptwriter for the radio dramas, Manalive, from the novel by Gilbert Keith Chesterton; The woman who was poor, from the novel by Leon Bloy; Of people and plants, from the autobiography of Maurice Messeguè; and two original works: Dancing Esperia and I Bianchi e i Blu. He wrote and directed the TV film L’opera e i giorni. In 1989 he directed the one-act play Cristobal Colon and in 1992 the work Secondo il Padre. With the direction of Le rane di Ossirinco, he won the Premio Internazionale di Teatro Studentesco Techne.
He has publshed the novels Cronache da una città di mare (Guaraldi, Rimini 1995) and Le chiavi nascoste (Santi Quaranta, Treviso, 1996) which were shortlisted for the 1977 Campiello Prize.
With the Gruppo dell’Almadira he wrote and directed the following theatre dramas: Comedy!; Il terzo giorno; Iper-Hamlet; Il Marmo e la Rosa, un sogno Rinascimentale; Anfitrione. In 2008 he wrote, directed and produced the show E adesso Liscio!, il miusicol.
He was the Meeting’s Artistic Director for the friendship project between the people of Rimini and the San Marino Stage Festival, an International review of theatre, music and dance, as well as member of the Emilia-Romagna Regional Entertainment Committee. Currently he is a member of the National Commission for the International Promotion of Italian Language and Culture under the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. From 2001 to 2008 he managed and directed the Corso Theatre in Rimini.
As producer he has cooperated with the Teatro Stabile of Friuli Venezia Giulia in Shakespeare’s Othello and I Persiani.