Looking for Fellini in Rimini

After the night of the oscars, Federico Fellini and the discover of the places related to “La grande bellezza” in Rome, had suddenly become a some kind of trend.
But does the people remember he was actually from Rimini?
I do, so I asked to a friend to tell me about his homecity.

“I read, in the last two weeks, at least 5 articles about the Roman places in which “The Great Beauty” by Paolo Sorrentino was shot. Legitimate and also nice to read. I also knew that Roman tour operators already invented the Great Beauty Tour for the sake of tourists from all over the world.
I live in Rimini, Federico Fellini’s city , that Fellini who inspired the same Sorrentino (as he himself told at the Oscar ceremony) I’m not saying that I want to invent a “ad hoc” tour but surely I can enjoy it for myself, I thought. So I did that and now I also wrote about it.

Some of the most famous Federico Fellini films, as “Amarcord” and “I Vitelloni”, were set in Rimini. I said set, not shot, because the director has rebuilt his hometown at “Cinecittà”, in Rome, and has never shot – not even an frame of film – at home. Fellini’s Rimini is reproduced but it is an accurate copy, especially in placing at its corners the wackiest characters that the city could give birth to. “Rimini is a dimension of memory“, the director used to say, also because Federico abandoned his city when he was 19 years old, but it’s still there, there are the squares, there is the sea, there are the streets and even the street lamps. The city framed by Fellini’s genius is there, I saw it!

To a theoretical level, space is divided in two: on one side the sea on the other, the historical center and in the middle of the two the railroad. Two pieces of soul that on one hand place the gray and the nostalgia of the autumn and winter beaches and on the other hand the humanity of the squares in the city center, shops, clubs and meeting points.

Where to find Fellini in Rimini

The beachfront location symbol is definitely the Grand Hotel, on the terrace of which the Latin lovers of “Amarcord” embraced German women making them dance and children dreamed spying from behind the trees. In a sumptuous furnished room “La Gradisca” lived that adventure with the prince who gave her the nickname known throughout the city.

Piazza Cavour, Piazza del Comune and of the “Pigna” (a white marble fountain in the center of which is placed a cone) is the hub of life of “I Vitelloni” while that of “Amarcord” hanged out mostly around Piazza Tre Martiri.

Borgo San Giuliano is the most beautiful tribute to Federico Fellini, this old fishers’ village, is today populated by small houses which facades are covered with graffiti that recall the most famous scenes of Fellini’s movies. “Ginger e Fred”, “La Dolce Vita”, “La voce della luna” look down at you from the high windows, along an alley of small houses on two sides, one of which directly overlooks the river dominated by the historic Tiberius Bridge which links the city center to the fisherman’s village. Halfway is Fulgor Cinema, currently under renovation and recovery (maybe it will become a research center dedicated to Fellini) the room where the director saw his very first movie, sitting on the knees of his father. “Maciste all’Inferno” this is the movie that ignited the fire of imagination and passion of Fellini’s cinema.