8½ (Otto e mezzo)

8½ (Otto e mezzo) is Federico Fellini's 1963 surreal comedy-drama with autobiographical traces. An Italian-French co-production from Cineriz, produced by Angelo Rizzoli, it runs 138 minutes. The title counts Fellini's earlier work: six features plus shorter or shared pieces counted as halves. It premiered in Rome on 13 February 1963.

Marcello Mastroianni plays the celebrated director Guido Anselmi, hired to make a science-fiction film but blocked creatively. He retreats to a spa town, yet his wife Luisa (Anouk Aimée), his mistress Carla (Sandra Milo), friends, actors and producer all follow. The story drifts between this daily pressure and images in his mind: boyhood, a religious school, Saraghina dancing on the beach, a harem fantasy, his dead parents. Claudia Cardinale, Rossella Falk and Barbara Steele are also in the cast.

The script is by Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Brunello Rondi. Gianni Di Venanzo shot it in black and white, Nino Rota composed the music and Piero Gherardi designed costumes and sets. It won the Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design (black-and-white) and the top prize at the 1963 Moscow Film Festival. In the 2012 Sight and Sound polls it ranked 10th among critics and 4th among directors.