The film is made by memories, fragments, moments and different impressions, some of them reconstructed and filmed in Cinecittà, others repertoire materials from Teche RAI and Istituto Luce. Based on Scola’s personal memories, the movie narrates in particular Fellini’s early career: his arrival in Rome, the beginning as a cartoonist in the magazine Marc’Aurelio (where Fellini and Scola met), his arrival in the film industry as screenwriter.
From his debut as sketcher in 1930 to his fifth Oscar in 1933, Fellini is remembered by Scola as a big Pinocchio who luckily never became “a respectable child”.