Fellini's Creative Universe Explored in Padua Exhibition

The Musei Civici di Padova present a major monographic exhibition on Federico Fellini (Rimini, 1920 – Roma, 1993), exploring the legendary filmmaker's creative process through over 160 drawings, family photos, letters, contracts, original posters, and costumes. Curated to highlight the spontaneous nature of Fellini's imagination, the show proceeds thematically, from his early caricatures to the erotic fantasies of his 'forbidden theater.' Fellini, who left Rimini for Rome to transform cinema, is celebrated as a 'cantafavole' who blended neorealism with the fantastical, creating immortal characters like Alberto Sordi's White Sheik, Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain, and Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina and Cabiria. The exhibition also features his dream notebooks—scribbled on bedside notepads—and drawings made on restaurant napkins, revealing a feverish, ungrammatical visual language that shaped film history. The show runs at the Musei Civici di Padova, curated by Serena Tacchini.