Federico Fellini’s 8½ in 35mm

Featuring a stunning new print struck from the original camera negatives in Italy, now touring the U.S.

Torn between mistress Sandra Milo and wife Anouk Aimée, while caught idea-less on the verge of an ambitious new production, movie director Marcello Mastroianni escapes into childhood memories and sexual fantasies, until, in the course of a climactic ballet around his space-age set, he finally finds his subject. Seamless, seemingly autobiographical interweaving of reality, memory, and dreams, a stylistic breakthrough and an influence on generations of moviemakers — but, of course, according to the maestro himself, “Of all my films, this has the least reference to personal facts…There is nothing in it beyond what can be seen.” 

“The best film ever made about filmmaking.. bursting with inspiration. I have seen 8½ over and over again, and my appreciation only deepens. It does what is almost impossible: Fellini is a magician who discusses, reveals, explains and deconstructs his tricks, while still fooling us with them. He claims he doesn’t know what he wants or how to achieve it, and the film proves he knows exactly, and rejoices in his knowledge.” – Roger Ebert

PROGRAMMING NOTE: This 35mm print was struck from the original camera negative at L’Immagine Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy, and subtitled at TITRAFILM in Paris, one of the world’s few surviving 35mm subtitling facilities. The print was created entirely photochemically, with no intermediary digital source or restoration. Lasers were used to etch the subtitles directly into the film emulsion, the only subtitling method possible for photochemically-created prints.

Some of the laser-etched titles will occasionally be partly or completely washed out against white backgrounds, making about 15% of the text unreadable or partly readable. Some extended passages of dialogue are affected. “White on white,” unavoidable and common in 35mm prints, once plagued black & white foreign language films. The problem has largely disappeared since the rise of digital projection. Despite this issue, we feel this is an extremely rare opportunity to experience Fellini’s extraordinary imagery in a newly-struck first generation 35mm print.