The scope of this research project will examine the reasons behind Federico Fellini’s creation of an oneiric cinematic hometown, Dreamini. The thesis proposed is that Dreamini is the source and solution of neuroses developed in Fellini’s youth, as a consequence of the loss of his childhood hometown, Rimini, after World War II. The primary research material will include a selection of his films, drawings and dream journals, The Book of Dreams. What the thesis proposes is that Fellini conceived Dreamini as a repairing oneiric and cinematic place of belonging to represent and overcome the trauma of loss–of his hometown and childhood.
At this early stage of the project, the focus is mainly on the study of I Vitelloni (1953), La Dolce Vita (1960), 8 1/2 (1963) and Amarcord (1973), and, in particular, the references to the creation of a cinematic and oneiric ‘place of belonging’ in this selected filmography.
Giulia Bindi received her BA in Foreign Languages and Literature (French, English, German) from the University of Bologna in 2009, with a comparative study of Chrétien de Troyes’s 12th-century Arthurian romance, Perceval ou le Conte du Graal and Eric Rohmer’s film, Perceval le gallois (1978) as her final dissertation. The following year she started postgraduate study at Birkbeck, University of London, where she was awarded a MA in History of Cinema and Visual Media in 2010, with the dissertation, Dreamini, Fellini’s oneiric hometown. Currently she is researching Dreamini under a new wider perspective, focusing on the creation of a repairing ‘place of belonging’ and dream-place reconfiguration.
