Ridendo e scherzando - Ritratto di un regista all'italiana

A father and son who lived separate for some time meet one day to try to reconcile and understand their diametrical differences.

On the 20th anniversary of Federico Fellini's death, Ettore Scola, a devoted admirer of the incomparable maestro, commemorates the lesser-known aspects of his personality, employing interviews, photographs, behind-the-scenes footage as well as his drawings and film clips.

Two textile traders, with the shop close to one another, fight for the supremacy of their own business during the racial laws in 1938 Italy.

An evening at an Italian restaurant hosted by tolerant and relaxed Flora, various middle-class parties enter – large and small, young and old, regulars and tourists, married and single – to dine, converse, argue, celebrate, make confessions; to eavesdrop, to interrupt, to sing, listen to music, and enjoy life.

Two neighbours, young Vincenzo and old Mr Bartoloni, are utterly unhappy. On the one hand, Vincenzo must lead a miserable and frustrating life as he cannot find any regular job, despite his Arts degree. On the other, Mr Bartoloni is fed up with his despotic wife: the woman who used to be a beautiful artist is now a fat and shabby drunkard. The two men meet on a particularly sad night and, during an outburst, Mr. Bartoloni asks Vincenzo to help him to get rid of his wife by simulating an accident with the promise of a reward.

In the French countryside, circa the 17th-century, Serafina, Pulcinella and Isabella are three lusty, beautiful members of a travelling theatrical troupe, leaving in their wake a crop of broken hearts.

Cameras follow the citizens of Rome as they go about their days and traverse the city. At dawn, a man leaves home and takes the bus, while a group of Chinese people do morning yoga exercises.

Mario and Maria Boschi, a 30-year-old couple with small children, are hit by a crisis: husband and wife cannot agree on a party name. A colleague, also named Mario, makes an impressive speech, and Maria find herself increasingly attracted to him. She feels able to relate to him like she could to her husband in the old days. They spend the night together, and she falls ill. When she is asked by her husband to leave the house, she realizes that there may be a difference between real love and a vague need for understanding.

Vincenzo dedicates his life to the bookshop he owns in Paris and to his daughter Albertine, forced to stay home because of an accident occurred to her a few years earlier. One day Yolande, an exuberant, eccentric, funny and beautiful girl, bursts into Vincenzo’s shop. Charmed by her vital energy, the man starts feeling again emotions he’s been chocking-off for too long, and which will make him question his melancholic and somehow suspended way of facing life.

Talks about the fears, vices and weaknesses that bedevil the contemporary Italian society. Highlights the degeneration that is plaguing certain quarters of the Italian society today.