Federico e Marcello: two friends

If he were still with us today Federico Fellini was 90 years. Perhaps from behind the thick glasses still retain that look of eternal youth lively and melancholic. Perhaps his singular voice, shrill and a bit nasal, still echoed  behind the scarf and under the wide-brimmed black hat. Maybe. Fortunately, if we can not see him, we can still talk about him and talk through the testimony of those who was not only a friend and collaborator. Vincenzo Mollica, journalist and writer, can certainly acquire this title in full and on whenever the opportunity presents himself  gives to the listener a juicy anecdote about his friend Federico. It was at the inauguration of the "Road of Fellini" realized months ago in Torre Canavese (TO) with the contribution of the Fellini Foundation and the ubiquitous Galleria Diletta Vittoria in via Margutta that in a private room at the bar Canova (attended by director of Rimini) Vincenzo Mollica told us this delicious anecdote that we report to the readers of the Tridente.

Federico Fellini, as every morning, was waiting outside the bar Canova Piazza del Popolo the car of the production that would take him to Cinecittà. The journalist  Mollica is there that  finds him sitting at a table. They salute and Fellini says he tried to phone "Marcellino" (so called Mastroianni) that morning, but  they were told him that he was left for Greece. Mollica enters the bar and in a quiet  room, behind a column, there's Marcello Mastroianni, who smokes a cigarette. The reporter informs him that outside there's Fellini and the actor replied that he told everyone to be left for Greece because it wants to be left in peace. Mollica then goes out and finding Fellini still waiting for the car tells him that there was Mastroianni inside the bar. The director did not bat an eyelid and when Mastroianni comes shortly after, the two had greeted them with a playful ritual mime who take two punch by issuing the typical onomatopoeic sounds of comic books, smash! sock! bam! ouch! No mention from them on the episode of Greece.

This was the idea of friendship for Federico Fellini, a man so unique that perhaps not even his own magical imagination could conceive.