©Pathe’ Films- Riama Film, La dolce vita, collection Fondation Pathe’ copyright 1960

At 6pm on 4 October, on Avenue des Gobelins in Paris, in a space sculpted by the architect Renzo Piano, the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé inaugurated the Fellini Maestro! exhibition, where several hundred documents, presented for the first time in France, including Fellini’s drawings, costumes, photos of film shoots and posters, immersed visitors in the fantasy of one of cinema’s greatest masters. The set design by co-curator Alessandro Pron extended, or rather sublimated, the Maestro’s unique poetry.

Following Stéphanie Salmon’s visit to the Fellini Foundation Collection, the exhibition’s co-curator and Director of Collections at the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation proposed that the Fellini Foundation should be associated with the event as a major lender, among other major international collections: The Jakob and Philipp Keel Collection, the Elisabetta Catalano Collection, the Dominique Delouche Collection, the Gérald Morin Collection, the Françoise Pieri Collection, the Sartori Farani Collection, the Christophe Goeury Collection, the Fellini Museum in Rimini and the Cinémathèque Française.

This prestigious exhibition was an opportunity for the Fellini Foundation to forge links with one of the most important foundations active in preserving, restoring and making Pathé’s exceptional historical heritage available to the general public, schools and researchers. During the vernissage and the visit by the major lenders, the President of the Fellini Foundation had the opportunity to meet Mr Jérôme Seydoux, film producer and Founding President, Mrs Sophie Seydoux, President of the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation, Mrs Pénélope Riboud-Seydoux, Executive Director, as well as a number of invited film professionals, in particular directors Jean-Jacques Annaud and Costa-Gavras.

It was also an opportunity to reunite with the film critics and writers with whom the Fellini Foundation collaborated at the time of the Fellini La grande parade exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, an event in which the Fellini Foundation was a cultural partner: Mr Jean Gili, professor emeritus of cinema history at the Sorbonne, author of numerous monographs including Fellini Magicien du réel published by Editions Gallimard, a publication in which the Foundation collaborated; Mr Jean-Max Méjean, critic, professor and author notably of Fellinicittà, a collective work that he edited at Editions de la Transparence in co-publication with the Fellini Foundation (2009).

Co-founder of the Fellini Foundation in 2001, Gérald Morin, as a major lender, brought to light many previously unpublished documents from its current collection. Throughout the discussions and reflections, one theme came up again and again: the memory of cinema is not only a cultural duty towards younger generations, but also a civic duty, because it reminds us all of the irreducible freedom of the artist.

The exhibition features a retrospective of Fellini’s films.

Link Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation

https://www.fondation-jeromeseydoux-pathe.com/event/2408

Mairie de Paris

https://www.paris.fr/evenements/fellini-maestro-42951