Salvatores: “I told Fellini I was a filmmaker, he said: ‘Be brave. Now I’m making one of his films”

Gianni Salvatores remembers his meeting with the great director, to whom he has dedicated his latest film Nostalgia - one of the titles in competition at the Venice Film Festival 2022

“At the end of an interview, I told Federico Fellini that I was a filmmaker, he looked me in the eye and told me: ‘Be brave’". With these words he launched the memory of his meeting with the great director, to whom he has dedicated his latest film, the last of the trilogy started with Educazione siberiana and Mediterraneo, in competition at the Venice Film Festival 2022 - Nostalgia. In short, Fellini's encouragement 'gave me the courage to continue' making films, explained Salvatores.

In the film there are several scenes in which a young filmmaker, played by Francesco Di Leva, goes on the set of Fellini to meet him, having somehow managed to get his phone number from a journalist. “I actually met Fellini just once, it was at the end of a screening of Tre passi nel delirio, to which I had gone as a spectator – recalled the director – and I approached him at the end to ask for an interview, because I was running a film magazine at the time. I wrote the article, then I plucked up the courage to call him to ask him some more questions and, in that conversation, I told him that I was a filmmaker too. He invited me to go and see him, so I went to Cinecittà with what I had filmed. I don’t think he saw anything of what I had brought him, but the fact that he had received me... ".

The last time the two met was in 1987, when Fellini went to the set of Kamikazen - ultima notte a Milano by Salvatores. “He gave me a very inspiring look, but he didn’t say anything – said the director – It was the moment when I decided that I no longer wanted to take him as a point of reference, because I realized that my language was now different from his, that I had to find a way of my own.”