ITALIAN HERITAGE AND CULTURE COMMITTEE of NY, INC. Celebrates 100 Years of Federico Fellini

On the hundredth birthday anniversary year of Federico Fellini, the Italian Heritage and Culture Committee of New York, Inc. (IHCC-NY, Inc.) will present a series of online discussions about Fellini and his films, facts, and fantasy. The series will highlight Fellini, the man and his legacy, including clips from some of his most famous films: La Strada, Notte di Cabiria, I Vitelloni, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and Amarcord.

Federico Fellini, Italian screenwriter and director of many iconic films, was nominated for many Academy Awards, winning four for Best Foreign Language film and the Academy’s Lifetime Achievement award. He also won prestigious awards at the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival. He received The Film Society of Lincoln Center Award for Cinematic Achievement. Fellini received the honor of Cavaliere di Gran Croce in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

Beginning September 30th and through to November 4, the weekly Fellini Series will include a number of experts: Richard Peña, Professor of Film Studies at Columbia University; Gianfranco Angelucci, screen writer, author, and Fellini collaborator; Mauro Aprile Zanetti, historian and author; Antonio Vitti, Professor of Film and Director, Scuola Italiana, Middlebury College; Giorgio Bertellini, Professor of Film Studies, Univ. of Michigan; Giancarlo Lombardi, CUNY, Professor of Italian and Visual Studies; Eugenia Paulicelli, CUNY Professor of Italian and Fashion Studies; Paolo Ceratto, author and son of Caterina Boratto, actress in three Fellini films; and others.

His screenplays drew on his childhood memories, experiences, dreams and fantasy, which in later years portrayed extravagant, baroque images. Giulietta Masina, his wife, starred in several of his celebrated films. His films also became noted for their set designs, costumes, and Nino Rota’s signature music. His filmography is so unique, it gave birth to the term Felliniesque and the word paparazzo.

The IHCC-NY, Inc. film series is a collaborative program with the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College, CUNY, and the Società Dante Alighieri NYC.

Schedule of Lectures

September 30 – Gianfranco Angelucci

“Federico Fellini: maestro di cinema e di verità” (subtitles in English) Gianfranco Angelucci is a writer, director, Academy teacher, who collaborated with Fellini on the film Interview (1987); it won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and First Prize at the Moscow Film Festival. He had an uninterrupted collaboration and friendship with Fellini, which began with a thesis on Satyricon and continued until the director’s death. On Federico Fellini’s work he has directed films, theatrical performances, television programs, and published numerous volumes. Among these are: Federico F. (2000) (also translated into English), Secrets and Lies by Federico Fellini (2013), Giulietta Masina, Actress and Wife of Federico Fellini (2014), and for the centenary, Glossary Fellini: 50 Voices to Discuss Federico Fellini, the Italian Genius of Cinema (2020). Hosted by Uff. Mico Delianova Licastro.

October 7 – Richard Peña

“The Price of Friendship: I vitelloni”
Richard Peña, (Harvard BA, ’76, MIT MS, ’78) is a Professor of film theory and international cinema at Columbia University and founder of its M.A. program in Film and Media Studies. He has been a Visiting Professor in the U.S. and internationally. From 1988-2012, he was Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Director of the New York Film Festival, organizing retrospectives including Antonioni, Germi, and Zurlini, and two ground-breaking series: “Passion and Defiance: Silent Divas of the Italian Cinema” and “Life Lessons: Neorealism and the Birth of Modern Cinema.” In 2000, he initiated the annual Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, co-sponsored by Cinecittà, in addition to other series worldwide. He was honored at Lincoln Center’s 50th Film Gala in 2012. Richard Peña continues to serve on the Rome Film Festival Selection Committee. He also hosts WNET/Channel 13’s weekly Reel 13, presentation of classics, Indies, and shorts. Hosted by Nancy Indelicato.

October 14 – Mauro Aprile Zanetti

“Fellini – Morandi: La dolce vita”
Mauro Aprile Zanetti is a polymath, a published author, a world-class multimedia brand strategist who has been working over two decades in communications, filmmaking, journalism and international PR. He has been creating top-notch storytelling for organizations and brands, startups and individuals such as LVMH-Moet Hennessy Diageo Ltd. (Italian Liaison in Kuala Lumpur); Smithsonian Institution (study leader-scholar of “Made In Italy” and Renaissance legacy); Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (speechwriter); the Manetti Shrem Foundation (official biopic author); the Faggin Foundation (publicist); Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Ferlinghetti’s aid and publicist on behalf of City Lights), and musician Vinicio Capossela (filmmaker on behalf of Atlantic-Warner Music of the live-concert film, Nel Niente sotto il Sole after Ovunque Proteggi album). Currently he is Chief Evangelist (the first Italian ever appointed in Silicon Valley) at Cloud4Wi, leading business transformation (humanization of technology), world-wide business development, managing PR & comms, and multimedia strategy. Hosted by Cav. Josephine Maietta.

October 21 – Antonio Vitti

“The Never-ending Dance between F. Fellini and P. P. Pasolini”
Antonio Vitti began film studies at the University of Michigan and at Iowa University. His first hands-on experience with film making was with Giuseppe De Santis at Middlebury College where he also worked with Francesco Rosi, Giuseppe Tornatore, and Vincenzo Marra. His research has been primarily in the areas of Film Studies and Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature and Culture. His interests include Pasolini, Scola, Wertmüller, De Santis, Rossellini, Amelio, Roversi, Montaldo, Rimanelli, Nanni Loy, Tornatore, Moretti, Monicelli, Wilma Labate, Marra. He is also interested in writers and poetry from emigrants. Other interests include photography, political songs, and the relationship between popular cinema and political power. He is currently working on keeping alive Luci e Ombre, an online journal on Italian Cinema, and on the relationship between Fellini and Pasolini. Hosted by Lucrezia Lindia.

October 28, 6:00 PM – Giorgio Bertellini

“Novel and Arguable: Fellini in America up to La Dolce Vita”
Giorgio Bertellini currently works at the Department of Film, Television, and Media at the University of Michigan. Editor of The Cinema of Italy (2004; 2007) and co-editor (with Richard Abel and Rob King) of The Nation/National in Early Cinema (2008), he is the author of Italy in Early American Cinema: Race, Landscape, and the Picturesque (Indiana UP, 2010), winner of the American Association for Italian Studies Book Award and of the Robert K. Martin Prize for Best Book sponsored by the Canadian Association of American Studies. He is also the author of a monograph (available in Italian, English, and Romanian) on Sarajevo-born director Emir Kusturica. His latest book is The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America (UC Press, 2019). Hosted by Rosa Casiello O’day. Click here to register for the event.

November 4, 5:00 PM – Final Panel

“Fellini for all Seasons: Circus Master, Husband Forever, Latin Lover Avatar—The Only Director to Win Five Oscar Awards”
Featuring Paolo Ceratto, Giancarlo Lombardi, and Eugenia Paulicelli. Hosted by Josephine Belli & Cav. Anthony Julian Tamburri. Click here to register for the event.

Paolo Ceratto is a former United Nations director who worked for different UN Programmes and Agencies in Africa, Europe and America for 33 years. He however started his career in the film industry working for Twentieth Century Fox in the distribution line in California and Venezuela. At a younger age, he worked as an assistant director to Giulio Paradisi, Francesco Barilli and Manuel De Sica. He has recently retired and served as ‘Consigliere’ in the Museo del Cinema of Torino (his birthplace) and written two books: “Il Lungo Film di Fellini” (Bonanno editore, 2019) and Caterina Boratto, Una Regalità Completa (Daniela Piazza, editore 2014). The latter book is about his mother who featured in 3 Fellini films: 8 1/2, Giulietta degli Spiriti and Bloc Notes di un Regista. In 2006, he was awarded the title of CAVALIERE by the Italian Republic. Currently he writes for various magazines and journals and is married with Mary Jodette, father of Ambra and Brando and the proud grandfather of the 6-month old Vera.

Giancarlo Lombardi is Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at the College of Staten Island and at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he serves as Executive Officer of the MA/PhD Program in Comparative Literature. He has published extensively on European and North American women writers, Italian film and television studies, cultural studies, and on American serial drama. He is the author of Rooms with a View: Feminist Diary Fiction and the co-editor of Terrorism Italian Style and Remembering Aldo Moro, both dedicated to cultural representations of Italian political terrorism. His most recent publication is another coedited volume, Italian political cinema. He is currently finishing a monograph on the rhetoric of fear in Italian television drama from the 60’s and 70’s and has just begun working on a new research project on the uses and functions of religion in prestige serial drama from the Global North.

Eugenia Paulicelli is the founding Director of Italian Cinema–CUNY (IC-CUNY). Professor of Italian, Comparative Literature, and Women’s Studies at the Graduate Center and Queens College, she has authored and edited several books, special journal issues, and articles on the history and theory of fashion, cinema, and literature. Among her latest publications: Moda e cinema in Italia. Dal muto ai giorni nostril (2020); Italian Style. Fashion & Film from Early Cinema to the Digital Age (2016); Film and Fashion in the 1960s, (co-editor, 2017) Moda e Letteratura nell’Italia della prima modernità (2019); and her essay on “Reframing History: Federico Fellini’s Rome, Fashion and Costume” (2019). She has curated exhibitions and is the founder of the partly digital project, The Fabric of Culture. Systems in the Making and author of the book of the same title. She also founded and coordinates the Concentration in Fashion Studies at the Graduate Center. At Queens she directs Undergraduate and Graduate Studies in Italian.