Since its inception in 2001, The Fellini Foundation has succeeded in elaborating an innovative concept of activities balancing tradition and modernity. This approach allows it to concentrate on the preservation of the cultural heritage, training and academic research, technology and the economy. Plus, of course, artistic creativity: in 2003 Maurice Béjart choreographed the ballet Ciao Fellini which received its world premiere at the first major exhibition by the Fellini Foundation, Fellini, Maestro del cinema, at the Palais de Beaulieu in Lausanne; in 2015 the Foundation partnered Johan de Meij to create the musical Fellini; in 2018 the cultural center of the Fellini Foundation in Sion hosted the world premiere of David Lynch’s lithographs in honor of Fellini with its exhibition David Lynch. Dreams. A Tribute to Fellini. 9,000 documents of the total collection of 15,000 are the work of Fellini. These have allowed the Foundation which owns them and bears his name to enlist partners and take on projects once considered closed to them and also to form a bond between the generation of the great Italian director and that of students and researchers today. Through its various activities (including more than 100 exhibitions and events in Switzerland and abroad, 40 publications and monographs, an educational program in cinema and photography “The Workshop of the Eye”) the Fellini Foundation has extended its remit to the areas of education, technology and the economy, even creating an exclusive interactive magazine for iPad on the exhibitions at its cultural center in Switzerland. Since 2001, particularly with those international exhibitions where it was the main cultural partner, the Foundation has established close links with leading economic figures and large firms. A good example is the exhibition Persol Magnificent Obsessions, created by the luxury group Luxottica in honor of Fellini and Terry Gilliam at the Center 548 in Manhattan in June 2011. At this the Foundation put on display important documents relating to the auditions for Fellini’s films. In a single space open to the public Luxottica/Persol and the Foundation gave an insight into the luxury sector and the world of film, both united in an obsessional quest for perfection in the name of creativity.
To summarize the activities of the Fellini Foundation, therefore, they center on four key areas: 1. The exhibitions; 2. Promoting the artistic heritage in schools and academic research; 3. The dialogue between culture and technology; 4. The development of culture as a driving force in the economy.
From 1998 - date of the creation of the Fellini Association, which became a foundation in 2001 - to 2017, nearly twenty years of activities in the service of culture, and in particular of the cinema, have brought light in Switzerland and in the world a hundred events - exhibitions, conferences, shows - more than forty catalogues and monographs, a dozen educational programs, and a network of numerous cultural, technical and economic partnerships. The heart of this intense commitment to the service of an international cultural heritage developed a dialectic integrating the museum, academic, scientific, educational and technical activities of the Fellini Foundation in the form of a know-how attentive to the dialogue between tradition and innovation.
Established in 2001 and located in Sion (Switzerland), the Fellini Foundation owns 15,000 original documents related to Fellini’s movies and the story of world cinema: drawings, posters, artefacts, photos, scenarios; the collection of the Fellini Foundation is unique in the world. The Fellini Foundation has published 40 monographs, organized and participated in more than 80 exhibitions and events since 2001 in Paris (Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume), Lausanne (Palais de Beaulieu, Musée de l’Elysée, Deutsch Museum), Geneva (Musée de Carouge), Bern (Kornhaus Forum), Rome (MACRO, Teatro dei Dioscuri), Madrid, Barcelona, Palma de Majorque (CaixaForum), Amsterdam (Eye Museum), Venice (Palazzo Benzon, Mostra del cinema), Koblenz (Ludwig Museum Koblenz), Milan (Galeria Cartiere Vannucci), Moscow (House of photography), New York (Center 548), Toronto (TIFF Festival), Wroclaw (Nowe Horyzonty Festival), Gdynia (FPFF Festival), Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo (Instituto Moreira Salles), Singapore (Nanyang Technological University (NTU) / School of Art, Design and Media (ADM), Rencontres photographiques (Arles), European Economic and Social Committee (CESE, Bruxelles). The Fellini Foundation leads some cultural and academic programs (L’Atelier du regard, lessons of cinema and master classes in the Lyceum des Creusets and its Cultural Space (La Maison du diable, Sion, Switzerland). As part of its activities, the Fellini Foundation directed and produced cultural events and short films. Maurice Béjart created a choreography Ciao Federico in world premiere at the opening of the Fellini Foundation’s first international exhibition in Lausanne (2003): Fellini Maestro del cinema. The Fellini Foundation was partner with Gallimard in the edition of Fellini’s Biography by Tullio Kezich and Fellini Magicien du réel, the monograph by Jean Gili. The Fellini Foundation developed an innovative and interactive magazine for iPad with IOMEDIA. For the opening of the foundation’s Cultural Space (October 12th 2011), the technological partner of Le Louvre-Lens, the French company On-Situ, designed the exhibition space. The Fellini Foundation’s Cultural Space in Sion, La Maison du diable organised exhibitions in world premiere about Federico Fellini (2011, 2013), Marcello Mastroianni (2016), Audrey Hepburn (2014), the Golden Age of Hollywood 1919-1939 (2013), the fantasy cinema (2012) and the world famous film/cinema photographers Stephanie Cornfield (award-winning portrait photographer about David Lynch, Jack Nicholson and Kirk Douglas), Marion Stalens (whose works were presented by her sister Juliette Binoche in two master classes), Patrick Swirc (portrait photographer: Catherine Deneuve, Jim Jarmush, Pedro Almodovar, Diane Kruger, Chiara Mastroianni, Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch), Laure Vasconi (exhibition The cities of cinema, 2017). September 7th, 2018, the Fellini Foundation presents in world premiere the exhibition David Lynch Dreams. A Tribute to Fellini in its cultural center.
The cultural centre La Maison du diable was established in 2011 in Sion (Switzerland), with an international exhibition about the mythic film of Tutto Fellini : Otto e mezzo Photographs of Paul Ronald. The cultural center of the Fellini Foundation is located in an historical (XVIth Century) and patrician residence The Domus Ruris Supersaxo whose popular nickname derives from an old and local legend: the failure of the evil against the good people of Sion.