LA DOLCE VITA

The Festival is pleased to invite you to join us for our Closing Night film, a Fellini classic co-written by Tullio Pinelli, the long-time Federico Fellini collaborator who died March 7 in Rome this year at the age of 100. Nominated for four Oscars, all for Fellini works, Pinelli was the scribe with whom Fellini worked with the most in what has been considered an almost symbiotic rapport.

In LA DOLCE VITA, rarely, if ever, has a picture depicted such decadence, immorality and sophistication within a series of satiric panoramas in the heart of Rome. Marcello Rubini is a frustrated writer who is reduced to tabloid journalism in order to make ends meet. He spends every evening in Via Veneto - the venerable hotspot for people who want to be seen. The film follows the unique journey of the street's most colourful characters. Soon the empty evenings weave together into decadent rhythm, punctuated only by the following morning's regret.

A series of disparate episodes skillfully sewn together, LA DOLCE VITA (aka The Sweet Life) remains one of Fellini's most immediately recognisable films, and a fascinating insight into Rome's "good life".