This pilot episode of a television series for ABC was rejected by the producers due to its perceived unorthodox nature and lack of content. The entire project, which had included a series of interviews conducted by Orson Welles with various personalities of Italian cinema, was subsequently abandoned. The sole copy of this 27-minute reportage-portrait was discovered in an old trunk that had been left by Welles at the Ritz in Paris in 1986. In that same year, it was screened for the first time at the Venice Film Festival. It is now presented in Venice again in the restored version produced by the Filmmuseum of Munich in collaboration with Cinecittà.