The White Sheik

(Lo sceicco bianco)

Digital Restoration

The White Sheik also screens Thursday, January 16 (without lecture).

  • Lecture

    Film historian Russell Merritt has been introducing films, lecturing, and serving as an occasional guest curator at BAMPFA for more than thirty years.

featuring

Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Brunella Bovo, Giulietta Masina,

Federico Fellini’s first solo directorial effort is a farce about the collision of fantasy and reality. A pair of provincial newlyweds (Leopoldo Trieste and Brunella Bovo) arrive in Rome with plans for a visit with relatives and an audience with the pope. But first the naive young bride sets out to meet her heartthrob, the White Sheik (Alberto Sordi), hero of a fumetto photo-comic strip—leading to a romantic misadventure for her and a series of embarrassments for her increasingly hysterical husband. Propelled by a jaunty Nino Rota score, the film features a minor but memorable appearance by Giulietta Masina as the prostitute Cabiria.

Juliet Clark
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Federico Fellini
  • Ennio Flaiano
  • Tullio Pinelli
Based On
  • a story by Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pinelli

Cinematographer
  • Arturo Gallea
Language
  • Italian
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 86 mins
Source
  • Rialto Pictures
Additional Info
  • 4K restoration by Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, in collaboration with RTI-Mediaset and Infinity, as part of Fellini 100. Restored from the original camera negative. Soundtrack negative provided by Studio Cine. Restoration carried out at L'immagine Ritrovata laboratory, Bologna.