Intervista

Federico Fellini's Intervista (1987) is available to watch online on iFILM. A Japanese television crew arrives at the Cinecittà studios hoping to interview the maestro — and instead of answering, he hands them his memories, restaging the day he first walked onto that same lot as a young reporter.

Genre barely applies here. Part documentary, part dream, part love letter to moviemaking, the film has Fellini playing himself while a young Sergio Rubini stands in for his younger self. The centerpiece lands like a punch: Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg meet again, nearly thirty years after La Dolce Vita, and sit down to watch their own old footage. Elephants wander the soundstages, Native Americans ride motorbikes, and half-finished scenes drift past like ghosts.

This is late Fellini with no plot in the usual sense — a picture about how pictures get made and how memory melts down what really happened. It took the top prize at the Moscow Film Festival and a special award marking the 40th Cannes. Best suited to viewers who already love 8½ and welcome a loose, self-mocking confession from a master. Stream Intervista (1987) online on iFILM.