The cast and crew discuss the inspiration and motivation behind the original story and development of this epic, 15 years in the making.
To mark the recent thirtieth anniversary of Sergio Leone’s death, this documentary sets out to pay tribute to one of the great legends of world cinema. The singular artistic vision of Sergio Leone has transcended national borders, creating the Spaghetti Western genre and transforming the international cinematic panorama forever with his innovative stylistic and narrative solutions, which have now become part of the language of the movies. The film, which is enriched with precious archive footage from the Cineteca di Bologna, including rare audio recordings and film clips shot behind the scenes, sees for the first time the direct participation of the Leone family and has interviews both with Leone’s longtime collaborators and with icons of Hollywood who have been profoundly influenced by his work.
2020 marks 100 years since the birth of Federico Fellini, the most prominent Italian director and one of the symbols of the insuperable cinematic heyday of mid-20th century. Fellini had always been a mysterious director, not only in his cryptic symbolism but also in his idiosyncratic, excessive mixture of psychoanalysis, Catholicism and faith in the mysterious. In this documentary, his relationship with the paranormal, luck and fate, alongside the coexistence of organized discourse and transcendence to the imaginary, is examined via friends, collaborators and distinguished fans (Friedkin, Gilliam, Chazelle). A great testimony to why rationalists and ideologists have a hard time with his work, ‘Fellini and the Spirits’ is an appropriate yet unexpected tribute.
Damien Sayre Chazelle (/ʃəˈzɛl/; born January 19, 1985) is a French-American filmmaker. He directed the psychological drama Whiplash (2014), the musical romance La La Land (2016), the biographical drama First Man (2018), and the period black comedy Babylon (2022). For Whiplash, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His biggest commercial success came with La La Land, nominated for 14 Academy Awards, winning six, including Best Director, making him the youngest person to win the award at age 32. He has also directed two episodes of the Netflix limited series The Eddy (2020). Description above from the Wikipedia article Damien Chazelle, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.