Fellini’s love letter to the Italian capital is a semi-autobiographical depiction of his own move from his hometown of Rimini to Rome as a young man, and the delights he discovered there that would come to feature so heavily in his films. Told in a series of loose vignettes that give the film the feel of a visual scrapbook, it features a number of the director’s trademark settings, such as brothels and vaudeville shows, mixed with unusual, almost quasi-documentary sections such as that depicting a snarling traffic jam that help ground the city even as breathtaking imagery elevates the city into something timeless and mythical. Even for a filmmaker as personal as Fellini, Roma is a wholly transparent gaze into the director’s mind.    

Screening as part of the Federico Fellini retrospective, April 4th to 30th.