FILM: 8½
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One of the most influential films of all time, Fellini’s shimmering self-portrait in a hall of mirrors retains the power to dazzle and delight.
Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a film director struggling with creative block and a messy love life as he attempts to make an epic sci-fi movie.
Surrealist dream sequences, flashbacks and farcical predicaments collapse in on themselves as we follow Guido’s desperate quest for fulfilment. Shot in luminous black and white, it’s a masterclass in cinematic storytelling that repays endless viewings: visually stunning, darkly funny and, crucially, emotionally involving.
8½ is screened to complement Opera North’s performances of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, a co-production with Gothenburg Opera that relocates the action to a Fellini-esque Italian film studio.
“8½ is the best film ever made about filmmaking”
— Roger Ebert“The most brilliant, varied, and entertaining movie since Citizen Kane”
— Dwight Macdonald
Doors
6.45pm
Start
7.30pm
Duration
2 hours 18 minutes
Certificate
15
Language
Italian

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