Series

Michael A. McRobbie's Choice

In September 2017, more than 30 Indiana University faculty and staff members presented gifts to endow the Michael A. McRobbie President’s Choice Film Series Fund. The series is now officially part of IU Cinema’s program every semester in perpetuity, honoring  Chancellor Michael McRobbie’s leadership and his affinity for cinema. Each semester,  Chancellor McRobbie selects films that represent some of the masterworks of cinematic art to screen in IU Cinema’s world-class theater.

Spring 2025 | Fellini’s Carnevale

Carnevale brings a bacchanal of color, life, and mischief to Italy’s dark winter months, and much the same can be said for these three films from Italian master filmmaker Federico Fellini. Juliet of the Spirits, Roma, and Satyricon are representative of his oneiric period, where he mined memories of his youth, translated subconscious thought and desires into abstract images, embraced surrealism, and rejected the rigid confines of narratives. As a result, these films favor bold, indelible visuals and abstract translations of subconscious thought and desire. The result is a tryptic of work benefitting from the freedom to experiment and which operates in a lyrical, dreamlike register. There are perhaps no better examples of his artistic, thematic, and aesthetic range then the films curated in this season’s series. And, to be sure, they are three films you will never forget, as indeed, like at Carnevale, a Fellini, ogni scherzo vale (anything goes during Fellini)!

January 25, 7pm: Juliet of the Spirits/Giulietta degli spiriti | Fellini's symbolic, surreal, and opulent take on the culture of the swinging 1960s by way of the director's favorite preoccupations: sex and love, life and death, and fantasy and reality. 60th anniversary screening.

February 1, 7pm: Satyricon/Fellini-Satyricon | Rome: before Christ, after Fellini. The Italian master's series of first-century mythical tales.

February 15, 7pm: Roma | A fluid, unconnected, and sometimes chaotic procession of scenes detailing the various people and events of life in Italy's capital, most of it based on director Federico Fellini's life.

Curated by IU University Chancellor Michael A. McRobbie.