In a bid to streamline transport and logistics — and spare attendees from spending half the festival shuttling up and down the Italian Riviera — this year’s Italian Global Series Festival has drawn a clearer line between its two host cities. Rimini takes the opening days (July 3–6), Riccione the central stretch (July 7–10), before the event returns to Rimini for its closing ceremony on July 11.
The split should also give visitors more time to absorb the festival’s distinctive settings: from the historic Cinema Fulgor — where a young Federico Fellini first fell under cinema’s spell — to the imposing Castel Sismondo, the 15th-century fortress that now houses the Fellini Museum. Indeed, rather than treating Rimini’s most famous son as a backdrop, IGS has made him a patron saint.
“The spirit of Federico Fellini is ever present,” says artistic director Marco Spagnoli. “Beyond the obvious reasons, I honestly believe that if he were alive today, he would be making series. They would be enormously ambitious and expensive, of course, and they would be masterpieces. Fellini loved cinema, but above all he loved audiences. The possibility of reaching people through long-form storytelling would have fascinated him.”
