Fellini the founder? The Fellini brand in film production

Linking the word ‘entrepreneur’ to Fellini’s name may seem a contradiction. Yet, according to the literature, Fellini was founder, member or manager of no less than three film production companies. Research based on archival material, however, reveals that Fellini never played the role of producer, nor founded a film production company. Thus, the albeit frail aura of Fellini as entrepreneur falls apart. His name seems to have been used by producers as a brand to foster commercial operations. This process starts with La Dolce Vita (1960), which granted Fellini the status of ‘archetypical art film director’ and freed him from producer-imposed obligations. Delving into a mass of various, new archival sources and cross-referencing data, this article analyses how the Fellini brand – as auteur versus the film producer’s traditional capitalist logic – was constructed and later exploited by Fellini and his producers.