20th January 2018 – Its reopening on the day in which Maestro Federico Fellini would have turned 98

The chosen date for the reopening of the most ancient cinema in the town of Rimini is not a random one. The day of great Federico Fellini’s birthday, the master of Italian cinema.

It is at the Fulgor that Fellini fell in love with the seventh art in the second half of the nineteen twenties, when his father took him to see his first mute film “Maciste in hell” . Federico Fellini, the master, always had a bond with the place which represented true enlightment for him, so much as to make him revive it in some of his works, among which the extraordinary “AMARCORD” (in romagnolo dialect “I remember”), which was awarded with an Oscar in 1975; the famous scene in which Titta attempts his first intimate approach with Gradisca is set inside the Fulgor. (a curious fact: none of the scenes narrated in Fellini’s films were actually filmed in Rimini, all the Rimini locations were recreated in the studios at Cinecittà)

Even the New York Times has listed the Fulgor cinema as one of the places worth visiting in 2018: it is a small cinema which withstood bombings the second world war, and takes us back to the magical atmosphere of the first half of 1900 and represents a true part of the history of cinema. Restoration of this complex started in the 1990s and has only recently been completed thanks to a project by architect Annio Maria Matteini from Rimini, who handed over 4-floor building to the town, respectful of the existing architecture, but enriched by the latest technology equipment. The interior design, instead, was entrusted to set designer Dante Ferretti, who collaborated with Fellini in several films. The style chosen by Ferretti differs greatly from the minimalism experienced by Fellini in the years of his youth. Strong reference is made to the 1930s and 1940s Hollywood productions and the baroque decors and arabesques aim at being a celebration of the Fulgor as a place and as a symbol of cinematographic art.