Italian Cinema Forum 2026. Workshop # 3
Italian Cinema Forum 2026.
Presented by Dr Mark Nicholls (The University of Melbourne)
WORKSHOP # 3
8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Tuesday 30 June 2026, 6.30-8pm
CO.AS.IT., 199 Faraday St, Carlton
Free event. Registration essential here: https://www.coasit.com.au/events/events-archive/icf-3-2026
Selected clips from the movie will be shown during the forum as a basis for group discussion. For a more engaging conversation, we encourage you to watch the full movie beforehand.
Starring Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale as potent expressions of their director’s Carl Jung influenced ego, 8 ½ is Fellini’s rich, mysterious and, above all, personal take on Italian filmmaking practice as he found it at the end of the 1950s. Guido (Mastroianni) resides at a popular spa town while trying to make his next film. Chaos is the order of business but somewhere within all the industry mayhem Guido finds space to reflect on his experience, from childhood to the carnival of married life. With the help of the real-life and fantastical spirits he encounters on set and off, the show doesn’t go on but the performance finds satisfaction in a great circle of personal reconciliation.
ITALIAN CINEMA FORUM
Following the successful classic and contemporary Italian cinema workshops chaired by Mark Nicholls at CO.AS.IT. (2019-2026), we continue the discussion with new instalments for 2026. Join us for this year’s forum. Our aim – as always – is to stimulate you to watch these films and television programs, again or for the first time, and to bring your ideas and insights to our always lively discussion. This year we begin with a series of discussions based on three films steeped in the creativity and chaos of the Italian film industry of the 1950s and early 1960s: Bellissima (Beautiful), La signora senza camelie (The Lady without Camelias) and 8 ½.
*
Dr Mark Nicholls is Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne, where he has taught film since 1993. Mark has worked as a film journalist for ABC Radio and The Age, and has a list of over twenty stage credits as a playwright, performer, producer, and director.
Image: Marcello Mastroianni in a scene from 8 ½. Public domain.
Presented by Dr Mark Nicholls (The University of Melbourne)
WORKSHOP # 3
8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Tuesday 30 June 2026, 6.30-8pm
CO.AS.IT., 199 Faraday St, Carlton
Free event. Registration essential here: https://www.coasit.com.au/events/events-archive/icf-3-2026
Selected clips from the movie will be shown during the forum as a basis for group discussion. For a more engaging conversation, we encourage you to watch the full movie beforehand.
Starring Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale as potent expressions of their director’s Carl Jung influenced ego, 8 ½ is Fellini’s rich, mysterious and, above all, personal take on Italian filmmaking practice as he found it at the end of the 1950s. Guido (Mastroianni) resides at a popular spa town while trying to make his next film. Chaos is the order of business but somewhere within all the industry mayhem Guido finds space to reflect on his experience, from childhood to the carnival of married life. With the help of the real-life and fantastical spirits he encounters on set and off, the show doesn’t go on but the performance finds satisfaction in a great circle of personal reconciliation.
ITALIAN CINEMA FORUM
Following the successful classic and contemporary Italian cinema workshops chaired by Mark Nicholls at CO.AS.IT. (2019-2026), we continue the discussion with new instalments for 2026. Join us for this year’s forum. Our aim – as always – is to stimulate you to watch these films and television programs, again or for the first time, and to bring your ideas and insights to our always lively discussion. This year we begin with a series of discussions based on three films steeped in the creativity and chaos of the Italian film industry of the 1950s and early 1960s: Bellissima (Beautiful), La signora senza camelie (The Lady without Camelias) and 8 ½.
*
Dr Mark Nicholls is Senior Lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Melbourne, where he has taught film since 1993. Mark has worked as a film journalist for ABC Radio and The Age, and has a list of over twenty stage credits as a playwright, performer, producer, and director.
Image: Marcello Mastroianni in a scene from 8 ½. Public domain.
Where is it happening?
189-199 Faraday Street, Carlton, VIC, Australia, Victoria 3053, 189 Faraday St, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia, Melbourne
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