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The maestro’s thumb-through of Petronius finds ancient Rome to be as joyless and overheated as modern Rome. Fellini described it as “science fiction of the past”. Much revelry, debauchery and grotesquery ensues in a world that bears less resemblance to history than to Fellini’s subconscious. A gorgeous but deeply pessimistic film. Fellini was added to the title to distinguish his film from the previous year’s copycat Satyricon from producer Alfredo Bini.

Federico Fellini remembers his Fascist-era hometown Rimini (renamed Borgo) in a loosely structured, sometimes dreamlike evocation of a year in the life of a small Italian coastal town in the nineteen-thirties –not literally but as recalled by a director whose international success allowed him to make films as personal and intimately he cared to. It nabbed an Oscar in 1975 as best foreign film.

Federico Fellini’s follow up to La Dolce Vita (and his last black-and-white movie) is the rare classic that rewards each viewing over a lifetime with new and different insights. A favorite of virtually every filmmaker, this exhilarating phantasmagoria was inspired by Fellini’s own creative block. “I am Guido”, he famously said of Marcello Mastroianni’s conflicted film director hero whose expressionistic, circuslike world is closing in on him. One of the most influential movies ever made, and the highlight of Fellini’s remarkable career.