Le Notti di Cabiria /

Nights of Cabiria (Italian: Le notti di Cabiria) is a 1957 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, plays Cabiria Ceccarelli, a feisty but naive prostitute in Ostia, then a seedy section of Rome. In 1998 the film was rereleased, newly restored and with a crucial scene that censors had cut. The name Cabiria is borrowed from the 1914 Italian film Cabiria, while the character of Cabiria herself is taken from a brief scene in Fellini's earlier film The White Sheik. It was Masina's performance in that earlier film that inspired Fellini to make this film. But no one in Italy was willing to finance a film which featured prostitutes as heroines. Finally, Dino de Laurentiis agreed to put up the money. Fellini based some of the characters on a real prostitute whom he had met while filming Il Bidone, and for added authenticity he had Pier Paolo Pasolini, whom he considered an authority on prostitutes, help with the script. The American musical and movie Sweet Charity is based on Fellini's screenplay.