Fellini: A Case Study in Myth-Making

At Chapman University’s inaugural Day of Italian Research in the World, held in partnership with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Los Angeles and ISSNAF, the Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation, Federico Pacchioni delivered a talk titled “Fellini: A Case Study in Myth-Making.” Presented on April 20, 2026, as part of the broader Italian Research Day in the World initiative, the event explored Federico Fellini as both a filmmaker and a cultural monument, examining how an artist’s legacy is shaped not only by artistic achievement but also by the critical, institutional, and civic processes that transform a creative figure into a lasting symbol. Pacchioni showed how Fellini came to be memorialized not simply as a major director, but as an auteur whose name came to embody a distinctive vision of Italian national imagination, offering a broader reflection on how modern auteurs are fashioned, received, canonized, and commemorated as cultural monuments.