The story of the film is simple but multi-layered. Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) is a famous Italian film director who is trying to recover from the success of his previous film and is looking for inspiration for a new cinematic masterpiece. He has a complicated relationship with his wife (Anouk Aimée) and in his imagination he is increasingly often visited by the ideal woman (Claudia Cardinale). Producers insist to get some clarity about the director’s next film but the work is not coming along and the threat of a creative crisis of the master is looming. Guido invents different ways of how to hide from reality. He indulges in sentimental memories of the happy life in his childhood home and travels to a resort where he enjoys fragrant baths and is served by the most beautiful women of his life. In his dreams and fantasies, he is still able to be free and fly.

"8 ½" is considered to be the most autobiographical film of Federico Fellini. It's a lyrical, ironic, comic and very affectionate film about what it's like to be an artist. The suffering of doubt and love on the one hand and art as the highest expression of pleasure on the other. This elusive, almost ethereal process of creating art, which the director goes through, has been transformed into visual images.

The film brings together a bright ensemble of actors' personalities - screen icons, each with their own charisma. Even when the film becomes surreal, the actors act very realistically and credibly. The effect is sometimes confusing - but always beautiful!

The music created for this film by the composer Nino Rota is a sensuous and poignant reflection of Fellini’s soul.

"8 ½" is a vivid example of the modernist tendencies of the 60s. The film won the main prize of the Cannes Film Festival - the Golden Palm Branch, two Oscars - for the best foreign film and for the best costume artist's work in cinema. It is consistently on the lists of the best movies of all time. "8 ½" has been named as their cinematic favorite also by the directors David Lynch and Martin Scorsese.

This is absolute Fellini. So it can't be described, it can be seen and enjoyed.

The restored version of Federico Fellini's legendary film "8 ½" in only one screening at Splendid Palace on 17 December at 19:00 with Latvian and Russian subtitles.