Federico Fellini Leopardi. Fellini improvised as he filmed, using as a guide a rough treatment written with Pinelli. Despite its modest critical and commercial success in Italy, and its warm reception by French critics, it failed to interest North American distributors. Fellini won the "Praemium Imperiale", the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the visual arts, awarded by the Japan Art Association in 1990. In July 1991 and April 1992, Fellini worked in close collaboration with Canadian filmmaker Damian Pettigrew to establish "the longest and most detailed conversations ever recorded on film". Described as the "Maestro's spiritual testament” by his biographer Tullio
Federico Fellini Screened at the 13th Venice International Film Festival, it was razzed by critics in "the atmosphere of a soccer match”. One reviewer declared that Fellini had “not the slightest aptitude for cinema direction". In 1953, "I Vitelloni" found favour with the critics and public. Winning the Silver Lion Award in Venice, it secured Fellini his first international distributor. Fellini directed "La Strada" based on a script completed in 1952 with Pinelli and Flaiano. During the last three weeks of shooting, Fellini experienced the first signs of severe clinical depression. Aided by his wife, he undertook a brief period of therapy