Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita set for remake

Others will shrug and say, they did it with Lolita.

AMBI Group Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi announced Thursday that they have signed a deal with the Fellini family to produce a remake of La Dolce Vita. Variety reported that in addition to AMBI handling the film, Italian producer Daniele Di Lorenzo will also finance the film’s production.

The original won a number of awards including a Best Costume Design Oscar for Piero Gherardi and the Palme D’or at the Cannes Film Festival in France for Fellini. How did it happen? The film, which is being called an “homage”, has been approved by the late director’s estate. “We knew it would take very special producers and compelling circumstances to motivate the family to allow rights to be optioned”, Fellini’s niece Francesca Fellini said in a statement. Italian-based AMBI will be producing the film through its LDM Productions.

“Our vision is of a contemporary story every bit as commercial, iconic and award-worthy as the original”, he continued.

If you thought you’d never have a reason to utter Ghostbusters, CUJO and La Dolce Vita in the same sentence, you must be blissfully oblivious to the current state of film, and its incessant reification of the adage “history repeats itself” – which, filmmakers should note, tends to be employed as a pessimistic statement.

Well, all I can say is good luck and I’m curious to see who will fill the shoes of Marcello Mastroianni, Yvonne Furneaux, Anouk Aimé, and of course, Anita Ekberg.

“La Dolce Vita” followed the escapades of a reporter, played by Mastroianni, as he mixes with Rome’s fading nobility, the nouveau riche, starlets and hangers-on in the city’s Via Veneto, while he struggles to find meaning in his own life. Despite his hedonistic attitude, Marcello does have moments of quiet reflection, resulting in an intriguing cinematic character study.