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On a recent day, filming is under way of the famous chariot duel between Ben-Hur and his friend-turned-enemy Messala.

But unlike the Charlton Heston epic, shot at Cinecitt in 1958 and 1959 with 15,000 extras, this remake will take advantage of the latest in visual effects technology, and the 400 extras on set will look like 100,000.

Producer Sean Daniel points to the racecourse, which is as long as two football fields. The chariot sequence will involve eight chariots, eight drivers and 32 horses and will take a month to film.

Jack Huston, who had a starring role in HBO's Boardwalk Empire, plays Ben-Hur. The movie also stars Morgan Freeman.

British actress Elizabeth Taylor readies for a scene in the 20th Century-Fox's filming of Cleopatra at Cinecitt in 1962. Girolamo di Majo/AP hide caption

itoggle caption Girolamo di Majo/AP

Luigi Rocchetti, who is in charge of makeup on the Ben-Hur set, comes from a movie production dynasty that started with his wig-making grandfather.

Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini built Cinecitt, Rocchetti says, because he wanted Italy to compete with big Hollywood productions.

But the studio made its mark after World War II with neo-realism and the golden age of Italian cinema.

Rocchetti remembers first visiting Cinecitt as a teenager.

"It was just, incredible, lots of movies going on, Fellini, Rossellini, Zeffirelli, it was really alive studios," he says.

But in the 1980s, movie production plummeted, and the 22-stage facility, one of Europe's largest studios, languished.

Until last year.

A plaque featuring a quote from Federico Fellini adorns his favorite studio: "When I'm asked what city I'd like to live in, London, Paris or Rome, to be honest my answer is Cinecitt. Cinecitt Studio 5 is actually my ideal place, this is how I feel before an empty stage, a place to be filled and a world to be created." Sylvia Poggioli/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Sylvia Poggioli/NPR

That's when Italy introduced a tax rebate of up to 25 percent on expenses incurred in movie production. If it's a big-budget movie, with more than one production company, the savings can double.

In addition to Ben-Hur, the biggest production at the studio since Cleopatra was filmed in the early 1960s, a portion of the latest James Bond thriller, Spectre, was shot earlier this year in Rome.

Ben Stiller is filming Zoolander 2 on five Cinecitt soundstages, while another American movie, Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt, based on the Anne Rice novel, is also in production.

Cinecitt CEO Giuseppe Basso says the new tax incentives have put the studio back in business.

"We are called the 'dream factory' not because we dream, we stay with our feet on the ground, but because we are the factory of the dreams," he says.

For cinephiles, Cinecitt offers guided tours and a new museum. One room is dedicated exclusively to the studio's most loyal director: Federico Fellini.

The Italian auteur shot virtually all his movies at Cinecitt, including La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2. In interview footage projected on the walls of the gallery dedicated to him, Fellini explains that working there was actually therapeutic.

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"One time I arrived with a high fever, but as soon as I entered the magic circle — with the projection lights on, the crew all around me and having to wear the director's uniform — all my ailments, even the fever and headache, simply disappeared," he said.

Fellini loved Cinecitt so much that he had an apartment created next to his favorite soundstage, Studio Five. Those rooms are now being used as the Ben-Hur production offices.

Daniel, the movie's producer, smiles as he walks up Fellini's stairs.

"His furniture is gone," Daniel says. "But we like to think that his spirit and his ghosts are still here."

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