Amarcord, 1974
Director
Federico FelliniCast
visit the film locations
Visit: Italy
in the area
Anzio is also featured in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley, with Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow, where it substitutes for ‘San Remo’.
Fellini's typically imaginative, anecdotal look at smalltown Italian life in the Thirties won the 1973 Best Foreign Picture Oscar.
Like all of his later films, it was shot on the huge Stage 5 at Cinecittà outside Rome. The town of ‘Borgo’, built in the studio by Art Director Danilo Donati, is based on Rimini on Northern Italy's Adriatic coast.
The ‘Grand Hotel of Rimini’ exterior, though, where Bisceine has a dubious adventure with the sheik's wives, was too large even for Cinecittà.
It's the five-storey, art nouveau Paradiso sul Mare, which you can see in Anzio, on the coast 35 miles south of Rome.
Built in the early twenties as a casino, it was closed on the orders of Pope Pius X, who had a problem with the notion of gambling so close to the Vatican. The owner was financially ruined and the building is now a wholesome catering school. It's owned by the town of Anzio and you can occasionally attend events.
