Federico Fellini

La Dolce Vita (1960), which follows a gossip journalist through Rome's decadent nightlife, is widely considered Fellini's signature work and gave the world the term 'paparazzi.' 8½ (1963), a film about a director suffering from creative block, is equally celebrated and frequently ranked among the greatest films ever made.

Fellini won four Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, for La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), 8½ (1963), and Amarcord (1973). He also received an honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1993, the year of his death.

Fellini was born in 1920 in Rimini, a small resort town on Italy's Adriatic coast, which he later mythologized in the nostalgic film Amarcord (1973). He moved to Rome as a young man in 1939 and spent most of his career working at the legendary Cinecittà Studios.

'Felliniesque' describes the surreal, extravagant, and dreamlike visual style characteristic of Fellini's mature films, featuring bizarre characters, baroque imagery, and a constant blurring of fantasy and reality. The word has entered standard film-critical vocabulary for any work that echoes his flamboyant aesthetic.