The Fellini Film Foundation presents itself

Le Regard Libre N° 35 - Loris S. Musumeci

For almost twenty years, the Fellini Foundation for Cinema has been working to promote the seventh art within the cultural sphere. With a rich heritage of works by Italian director Federico Fellini and cinema in general, the Foundation organizes exhibitions around the world with prestigious partners. Last December, it published a book retracing the filmmaker's career. Here we meet the Foundation's President, Stéphane Marti, who explains the origins of the Foundation, its activities, its mission and the new book Fellini et la Fondation Fellini. Fellini and the Fellini Foundation.

Loris S. Musumeci: What is the origin of the Fellini Foundation?

Stéphane Marti: Many conditions, many people, many places that intersect. Such is the origin of the Foundation. It all began at the Collège de Sion, the equivalent of today's Lycée-Collège des Creusets, where the cinematic tradition already held an important place through its ciné-club. Every two weeks, a film was shown to an audience of four hundred students. The teacher who started it all, Léonce Matthey, was also in charge of the school's video library, which he had created. This had grown to a respectable five thousand films on VHS. I, in turn, began teaching at the college in 1987, exactly four years after I had been to Rome and had the good fortune to meet Federico Fellini on the set of’E la nave va, which was an important milestone.

Read also: «Meeting with Stéphane Marti»

Tell us about this episode.

While the college's cinema activities were running their course, I left to study literature at the University of Fribourg. There I founded a newspaper. In preparation for the first issue, my friends and I had already secured an interview with Eugène Ionesco. But we needed more to make our mark. So I set off for Rome to find a way to meet Fellini, an ambition so ridiculous it seemed impossible. I arrived at Cinecittà with a photographer friend on March 16, 1983. The press office was amazingly kind. I'm told I'll be able to approach the Maestro later in the day, when he presents his film. Once on the set, the RAI journalists and I were able to ask questions.

From your meeting with Fellini to the Foundation bearing his name, what other steps did you have to take?

Ten years later, while teaching at the Lycée-Collège des Creusets, I also sat on the Valais State Cultural Council. It was then that I met Gérald Morin, Fellini's assistant director. In 1998, impressed by the college's video library, he donated the first documentary part of his own archives. At that point, we created the Fellini Association. Mr. Jolliat, who was to become our archivist, and a group of students worked on putting the archives in order. In 2001, Mr Morin sold us the second part of his documents, containing thousands of photographs and drawings among other things, acquired with the help of the State of Valais and the Loterie Romande. End of the Association, beginning of the Foundation.

How have you evolved over the past seventeen years?

We have doubled the quantity of our museum-type documents: in other words, we now have fourteen thousand items, including nine thousand on Fellini. Thanks to this heritage, we have been able to organize around a hundred events, both local and international.

What kind of events?

The Fellini Foundation follows four directions for its events. The first is exhibitions and cultural events. Since 2011, these have been taking place internationally, in Switzerland and at the Maison du Diable in Sion, graciously made available to the Foundation by the town's Bourgeoisie. Among these events, we participated in the organization of «Fellini, la Grande Parade» in 2009, at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, with other partners.

What do you get out of an event like this?

After Paris, the exhibition toured the world. Of the four hundred documents on display, two hundred came directly from Sion. The State of Valais and the City of Sion were also major sponsors of the exhibition. It was also an opportunity to collaborate with Editions Gallimard on the exhibition book. It was a win-win situation for the Foundation and the canton.

Has your Foundation been involved in any other events of this scale?

Yes, absolutely. I think back to 2003, when Maurice Béjart decided to create a world premiere ballet for our exhibition at the Théâtre de Beaulieu in Lausanne. We actually went to meet the choreographer, and he was honored to take part in the project, even in the name of his deep friendship with Federico Fellini. The President of the Italian Republic, Mr. Ciampi, and the President of the Swiss Confederation, Mr. Couchepin, were at the patronage.

You described the first direction the Foundation took in its work. What about the second?

Our second direction is education. We don't just want to present documents, we want to use our heritage to educate, to really put it at the service of learning about art. At the Collège des Creusets, we have set up the Atelier du Regard, offering courses in photography and cinema. In addition, students from Lausanne and Paris come to work with us on their bachelor's and doctoral theses. Last year, a student from the Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne completed her diploma thesis in our archives. For younger visitors, the Passeport Vacances organizes visits to the Maison du Diable during the summer. We also collaborate with the local Université Populaire. Migrants are also integrated into the project, with a program combining French and photography courses. Finally, we work with the Singapore Design School, which has enabled artist Ishu Patel, a former collaborator of Cartier-Bresson, to come to Switzerland to give classes to students at the college.

The third and fourth directions?

With exhibitions and education, we also want to focus on new technologies. When we launched the «Otto e Mezzo» exhibition in 2011, we created an interactive catalog for iPad, which wasn't widely available at the time. For the occasion, we collaborated with international journalist Gideon Bachmann, who has interviewed all the greats, including Chaplin and Fellini. In the magazine, visitors were guided through the exhibition by interviews between Bachmann and Fellini, Cardinale, Milo and Mastroianni. The final vector is the economy. We want to promote the local economy through the impact of our exhibitions. In 2012, for example, Princess Caroline Murat invited the Foundation to exhibit in her palace in Venice. Finally, the exhibition was included in the official program of the Venice «Mostra del cinema». This led to a gala evening, organized in conjunction with the Valais Department of the Economy, where political and industrial figures were able to meet.

You've also promoted the Swiss economy, haven't you?

Yes, in 2014 we organized an exhibition for the European Economic and Social Committee, a very important body of the European Union that is responsible for bringing together all the chambers of commerce, workers and trade unions. There, I had the opportunity to mount «Fellini Demiurgo e Saltimbanco». Swiss associations such as Economie Suisse and the Swiss Mission to the European Union were invited to the heart of the EU.

Let's go back to the name of your foundation. What is it about Fellini that still inspires you today in all your activities?

I think it's important to remember that Fellini was not just a film director. He was a complete artist, and a visionary at that. He saw before anyone else what modern television would become, and criticized it in his film Ginger and Fred. Fellini, like Chaplin, has a global view of the world. The Maestro's work, amounting to twenty-three films, forms a totality. You find everything in it: eros, life, death, time, old age, history and dreams. It's always said that we understand the first part of the twentieth century.^th century with Picasso, and the second part with Fellini. Take the example of La Dolce Vita. Why is everyone talking about this masterpiece? Because it's the very first film to portray the new European society, with its industry, consumerism and jet set, the paparazzi and so on. At the same time, it was a period of atomic anguish. Between 1960 and 1962, we're in the midst of the great Cold War crisis. And there's the character of Steiner, a wealthy and popular German intellectual, who one fine day, because of the anguish of his time, kills his children and commits suicide. Fellini holds up a historical mirror. In terms of film technique, he made many inventions. In this way, he can only inspire us in our day-to-day work, which is reflected in the Foundation's name.

You just published a book on December 22: what is it about?

We wanted to mark our twentieth anniversary. In doing so, we wanted to remind people of our work as a whole. Our work is comparable to that of a chef, whose customers eat and leave. Without a cookbook, the chef no longer sees what he has made. For example, the Fellini Foundation has published its «cookbook»: we show what we've done, highlighting the renewed importance of many posters, drawings, photographs and so on. At the same time, the book Fellini and the Fellini Foundation pays tribute to Fellini's work. Last but not least, it features contributions from a dozen international partners, demonstrating the impact of our foundation around the world. Ricardo Joao Moderno, President of the Brazilian Academy of Philosophy, wrote an article on Fellini's aesthetics. The Director of the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz, President of the Ludwig Foundation, also took part, as we had exhibited at her home.

Very well, readers will be delighted to discover this new work. Thank you for your time.

Write to the author: loris.musumeci@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Fondation Fellini pour le Cinéma