The fifth edition of the International Rome Film Festival recently closed in Italy’s capital city and as with previous editions, the Italian Post Office (Poste Italiane) was present at the event selling special edition postage stamps that celebrate Italian cinema.
This year they commemorated not one, but three icons of Italian cinema – film director Federico Fellini (1920-1993) whose La Dolce Vita is one of the most famous Italian movies of all time, as well as two of the country’s most celebrated actors of commedia all’italiana movies, Vittorio Gassman (1922-2000) and Alberto Sordi (1920-2003). They are represented with striking portraits set against a reel of film – the dramatic pose of Sordi in particular, is unusual, given that the actor was perhaps most famous for his comic roles. Early on in his career, in fact, he even dubbed the voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian versions of the Laurel & Hardy films with an exaggerated and comic English accent!
Designed by Luca Vangelli, these 60 Euro cent stamps are on philatelic postcards postmarked Giorno di Emissione (day of issue) on 28 October, 2010 and cancelled with an outline image that echoes the stamp itself. As a final homage to these heroes of Italian cinema, each stamp is also cancelled in a city of particular relevance – Fellini was born in Rimini, Gassman helped put the film studios at Cinecittà in Rome on the map, whilst Sordi was a native of Rome. More than a million people gathered in the city to pay their last respects at his funeral.
