Roma (1972): Cast, Box Office & Plot

Federico Fellini recounts his youth in Rome, weaving memory with the city’s vibrant, contradictory pulse. The film opens with a prolonged traffic jam that signals how the city moves through history, shifting from the Fascist-era 1930s to the mood of the 1970s. A young Fellini moves into a lively guesthouse filled with eccentric residents, run by a frail, obese landlady. He visits two brothels, one dilapidated and overcrowded, the other stylish and luxurious, and appears to fall for a woman working in the latter. The film paints a broader picture of Rome through a sequence of vivid vignettes: a cheap vaudeville theater, bustling streets, hidden tunnels, and an ancient catacomb whose frescoes are threatened by fresh air as excavators uncover it.