Cinecittà

Cinecittà, complex of film studios in Rome, Italy. Located opposite the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (experimental centre for cinematography), Cinecittà (“cinema city”) was opened by the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1937. Subsequently it became a leading site for the making of Italian films, television programmes, and advertisements. The studios were supported by state funding until their privatization in 1997.

Cinecittà is particularly associated with the director Federico Fellini, who, preferring its artificial sets and props to real locations, even when location work would have been cheaper and easier, made all his films there. The studios were also used as a base by the Neo-Realists, such as Roberto Rossellini, in the immediate post-World War II period; for the popular “muscleman” epics of the 1950s, which starred Steve Reeves and other bodybuilders in mythological stories; for many of the “spaghetti Westerns” of the 1960s; and for such international co-productions as Ben-Hur (1959) by William Wyler and Cleopatra (1963) by Joseph Mankiewicz. Later, The Name of the Rose (1986; Jean-Jacques Annaud), The Last Emperor (1987; Bernardo Bertolucci), and Gangs of New York (2002; Martin Scorsese) were filmed there.