New talk at the Academy with scenographer, costume designer and theatre director Dante Ferretti, winner of three Academy Awards during his exceptional career, during which he has worked with directors of the calibre of Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Martin Scorsese.
Appointment Wednesday 22 May 2024 at 16.00 in Aula Magna (G13) at RUFA at Via Giuseppe Libetta, 7.
The Talks are open to all RUFA students. To register, log on to RUFA Career System with your credentials.
If you have any doubts when registering, please contact stage.aziende@unirufa.it
>> Registration for the talk is possible from Thursday 16 May 2024.
“Being a set designer means being able to first imagine the world the viewer will see on the screen and then realise it”.
Dante Ferretti told RUFA students about his career and his work in both film (set and costume designer) and theatre (set and costume designer and director) based on his autobiography “Immaginare prima. Le mie due nascite, il cinema, gli Oscar” of 2022 in collaboration with David Miliozzi. About how his life has always influenced his work, about all the great artists he has collaborated with – including Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini and Martin Scorsese – and about his most recent work, including at the cinema Verona, directed by Timothy Scott Bogart, a musical about the quintessential love story of Romeo and Juliet. A teatro La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan, and Jules Massenet’s Werther at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa in 2023 and at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb in 2025.
Dante Ferretti also illustrated the process of creating a set design – from the reading of the script to the realisation and installation of the constructions – as well as his personal thoughts on the changes in the film industry due to new digital platforms.
The Maestro Dante Ferretti – the biography
Born on 26 February 1943 in Macerata, Italy, he is an Italian set designer, director and costume designer.
During his career, Ferretti has worked with many of the greatest American and Italian directors including Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Terry Gilliam, Franco Zeffirelli, Anthony Minghella, Martin Scorsese, Tim Burton, Brian De Palma and Timothy Scott Bogart.
Ferretti was one of the favourite pupils of Federico Fellini and collaborated with him on no less than five films, just as five films he made with Pier Paolo Pasolini. His closest and most prolific professional relationship, however, is the one he developed with Martin Scorse for whom he signed the sets of nine of his latest films for which he often worked as a team with his wife, the multi-award winning Set Decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo.
Ferretti was nominated for nine Academy Awards as Production Designer and won three: “The Aviator,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Hugo Cabret”. He was also nominated once as Costume Designer for “Kundun” and he has also won four Bafta Awards, three Los Angeles Critics’ Awards, an Art Directors Guild Award, a National Board of Review, five David di Donatello Awards, fourteen Nastri d’Argento, five Premio Cinearti – La chioma di Berenice and many others.
Ferretti often worked in the theater, designing sets for many operas and, in some cases, also experimented with costumes and direction. Specifically, Ferretti oversaw the productions in Spoleto of the triptych dedicated to Giuseppe Verdi: “Così fan tutte”, “Le nozze di Figaro” and “Don Giovanni”. On the 25th of July 2008 he made his directorial debut at the Sferisterio in Macerata, his hometown, presenting a new vision of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen”. In this staging, in fact, Ferretti decided to set the story in Franco’s Spain during the 1930s, where the austere scenes and costumes are his personal tribute to many directors such as Pasolini, Rossellini, Fellini and De Sica. In 2008 Ferretti also designed the set for Howard Shore’s opera “The Fly”, directed by David Cronenberg, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In 2022 he presented his vision of “La Boheme” by Giacomo Puccini at the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan while the season 2023/2024 will see him conducting the “Werther” by Jules Massenet at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa before and at the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb after.
Ferretti was also chosen as Production Designer for the “Cinecittà World” film theme park near Rome and also created a series of statues for the 2015 Milan Expo. In 2006 he curated one of the most evocative rooms of the Egyptian Museum in Turin. Created for the 2006 Turin Olympics, “The Statuary” has reopened in all its beauty, among mirrors and soft lights in the path called “Riflessi di Pietra”. In 2011 he designed the exhibition “Leonardo. Il genio, il Mito” at the Venaria Reale in Turin. In 2016 he designed the decorative and scenographic arrangements of the atrium and main hall of the very famous Cinema Fulgor in Rimini, linked to the life of Federico Fellini, drawing inspiration from Hollywood movie theater of the ‘30s and ‘40s and creating them through the use of materials of the highest quality such as wood and marble. His latest work in this area is the permanent exhibition “Felliniana – Ferretti sogna Fellini” in the Cinecittà Luce studios where Ferretti created an itinerary and two rooms, one of which is dedicated, as a tribute, to the Fulgor Cinema (faithfully reproduced to scale) and the other dedicated to “La città delle donne” where he recreated the evocative scenario of the pleasure house with the toboga.
His career has been celebrated abroad with many events including a three-month exhibition at the Academy Awards entirely dedicated to his works and he has two sketches on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institute. Furthermore, the MoMa in New York exhibited his sketches for six months and, in the autumn of 2013, celebrated him with a festival.
In October 2022 Ferretti published his first biography entitled “Immaginare prima. Le mie due nascite, il cinema, gli Oscar“, with the collaboration of David Miliozzi. The book was very well received by the public and, in the many presentations and television appearances that followed its publication, the Master’s irony and strong personality have met with great success, showing him, perhaps for the first time, not only as a man gifted with an extraordinary talent but also as an extremely easy going and funny person.
Addressed to: all students and particularly recommended for departments of Cinema/Set Design/Fashion
Duration: h 16.00 – 18.00
Date: Wednesday 22 May 2024
Location: Aula Magna (G13) – Via Giuseppe Libetta, 7