In 1973 Amarcord (in dialect, "I Remember") was the first of three films with Fellini and one of his most personal, drawing on the two men's memories of their Rimini youths. It brought a third Oscar nomination, though he lost to Dog Day Afternoon. The novelisation appeared under both their names but seems mostly to have been Guerra's work. After Casanova in 1976 Fellini wanted Guerra to write City of Woman but he was wooing a Russian woman at the time and felt it would be impossible as he commuted between Rome and Moscow. But he later returned to work with Fellini on the parable And the Ship Sails On (1983) and the amusing if lightweight Ginger and Fred (1986).

(ANSA) - Rome, January 20 - Google paid homage to Italian movie great Federico Fellini Friday with a doodle on the anniversary of his birth in 1920.

The black-and-white doodle shows the maestro in jacket and tie behind a film camera whose two reels form letters of the Google logo.

It was the second Fellini-linked doodle since December 3 when his longtime music collaborator Nino Rota was honoured.

Her years as a Sixties film icon must seem a very long time ago now for Anita Ekberg. For the Swedish actress, who entered cinema history the moment she stepped into Rome's Trevi Fountain during the celebrated scene in Federico Fellini's 1960 masterpiece La Dolce Vita, has fallen on very hard times indeed.

Things are so bad, that three months after her 80th birthday, the actress has asked her accountant, Massimo Morais, to request financial help from the Fellini Foundation, which was set up to honour the achievements of the renowned Italian director.

From better days:

"Claudia Cardinale has starred in more than 100 films since the 1950s.

She had major roles in two of Italy's most famous films, Fellini's 8 1/2 and Visconti's The Leopard.

She also did a stint in Hollywood in films like The Professionals and The Pink Panther.

Claudia Cardinale is still acting and has recently starred in small independent films such as Being Italian with Signora Enrica.

The film opened the Turkish Film Festival which is underway in London.

You can watch the full interview on BBC World News on Tuesday 29 November at 04:30, 09:30, 15:30 and 21:30 GMT and on BBC News Channel on Tuesday 29 November at 04:30 GMT and on Wednesday 30 November at 00:30 GMT."

But it also helps to be looking through the proper lens--to notice, for instance, that those would-be flaneurs outside trendy Bar del Fico (Piazza del Fico, 26; www.bardelfico.it), their heads turning in unison every time a pretty girl walks by, are straight out of "I Vitelloni," the director's pivotal portrait of frustrated, provincial 20-something men.

Sometimes Fellini's Rome and Felliniesque Rome live in close proximity. The apartment that Federico and Giulietta shared (Via Margutta, 110) is on a small, charming street where Truman Capote once lived and Puccini composed. There's not much to see except a plaque on the building with caricatures of the pair and a commemorative poem in Roman dialect. But notice the number on the door of the palazzo: above the 110, it says "Già 113"--formerly 113--a very Felliniesque address.

The film launched Fellini's directorial career, but was a collaboration (in production, direction, and screenwriting) with Alberto Lattuada. Up until that time, Fellini had been primarily a screenwriter (most notably working on Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City), while Lattuada was already an established and respected director of neorealist films and literary adaptations.

Variety Lights is a bittersweet drama about a group of second-rate theatrical performers on tour. The actors, dancers, and performers struggle to make money from town to town, playing to minimal crowds, while the ageing manager of the company falls in love with a newcomer, to the chagrin of his faithful mistress, played by Fellini's real-life wife, Giulietta Masina.

Below (incredibly and I am sure in violation of copyright) is the whole film on YouTube:

It won't be lost on many Italians that la dolce vita in Italy has turned rather sour when even The Grand Hotel in Rimini is, for the first time in its history, preparing to shut for the winter.

The palatial hotel, so beloved of film maker Federico Fellini, will close from January to Easter, its owners have announced, as Italy's economic crisis bites and the demand for five-star watering holes - even ones as mythical as this - goes into hibernation.

It was officially listed as an Italian national monument in 1994, and featured in many of Fellini's films, most notably as a sumptuous backdrop in his 1973 picture Amarcord, a coming-of-age comedy, in which he took liberal swipes at Mussolini and the Catholic Church.

"It was strangely fitting that the digitally remastered re-release of La Dolce Vita earlier this year was promoted, not by the usual critical garlands and reappraisals, but with a kiss and tell article in The Guardian by Germaine Greer in which she revealed hitherto untold liaison with the great maestro. Fellini always said that his films weren't autobiographical; it was simply that he had invented his own life purely for the screen. And if his preference for the soundstages of Cinecitta might sometimes make his films seem a little stagey, it is only because each of his films is set, ultimately, in the theatre of his imagination. And what a very peculiar place that turns out to be..."

I think "pervert" is a little too simplistic and obvious of a word to encompass Fellini's tastes and techniques, but the article is interesting nevertheless.