VENICE – On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the death of legendary and visionary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano and the director Ettore Scola paid homage to his memory at the 70th edition of Venice international film festival. Here, on September 6 1985, Fellini was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement.
Besides the film competition, which was won by Rosi, the movie “How Strange to be Named Federico” by Ettore Scola was screened in the presence of President Napolitano.
Throughout his career, Scola has directed more than three dozen films and obtained several Oscar nominations.
Italian film makers Federico Fellini and Ettore Scola 
Italian film makers Federico Fellini and Ettore Scola
Oscar nominations. He has described his movie dedicated to Fellini’s story and filmmaking talent as “an album of images, drawings, pieces of life and memories, including confusing and overlapping things”.
In 1993, when he died at the age of 73, Federico Fellini received the last of 5 Honorary Academy Awards celebrating his work at the 65th annual ceremony presented by Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, who often played main roles in his movies.
But Fellini wasn’t just an extraordinary filmmaker: through his movies he made the idea, the style, the icon of “La Dolce Vita” in the city of Rome known all over the world.
He is considered one of the most influential Italian directors of the 20th century, well-known for his visionary insights and widely revered as he won the highest number of Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film in history with his masterpieces La strada (1957); Le notti di Cabiria (1958); 8 ¹/² (1964); Amarcord (1976). In 1985, he was also the first non-American to be awarded the Film Society of Lincoln Center Prize for his achievements in the field of cinematic art.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano was deeply moved by the screening, and he said: “I knew Fellini. He was one of a kind, all of us simply wish he could come back. Like anyone else he was able to combine reality and imagination to represent Italy in his own original and imaginative way”.
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