“There is only one place where wonder, excess and the extreme exist without vulgarity: at the equestrian circus. I think it is popular entertainment at its best. In this splendid world of colours, movement and emotion we rediscover the eternal tramp whose face Chaplin borrowed”. (Federico Fellini)

In the year of Federico Fellini’s centenary, we are celebrating the great Rimini director with a retrospective dedicated to one of his greatest passions both as a child and as an adult. With its characters, masks, colours and sounds, the circus show was an important source of inspiration for Fellini: a common thread that ties together masterpieces such as La strada, Amarcord, 81/2. and of course I clowns, the director’s documentary about the figure of the clown that starts with his childhood memories. The films presented here take us on a journey into the circus world imagined and depicted by directors and animators from different countries and eras.
Ever since its inception, cinema has looked to the circus and popular and street arts for inspiration. The retrospective will open with the circus show Il grande viaggio di Augusto by the company Circo Sotto Sopra and Chaplin’s masterpiece of comedy and melancholy The Circus – screened in the version restored by Cineteca di Bologna –, a fundamental film that defined Fellini’s cinematic imagery.
The programme is enlivened by a selection of animated shorts made by people who have creatively reinvented clown, acrobatic and juggling routines using different techniques and materials, from Karel Zeman’s puppet animation to the animation of coloured objects and pieces of fabric by Cristina Lastrego and Francesco Testa.   

PAN PROKOUK AKROBATEM
(Mr. Prokouk, the Acrobat, Czechoslovakia/1959) by Karel Zeman (11’)

LEO & FRED
(Hungary/1982-1986) by Pál Tóth (animated series, 8’ long episodes)

IL CLOWN DISPETTOSO
(Italy/2015) by Cristina Làstrego and Francesco Testa (3’)

LA BANDA MUSICALE
(Italy/2015) by Cristina Làstrego and Francesco Testa (3’)

LA DOMATRICE DI LEONI
(Italy/2015) by Cristina Làstrego and Francesco Testa (3’)

GAPISZON W CYRKU
(Scatterbrain at the Circus, Poland/1964) by Jerzy Kotowski (9’)