Autobiographical?

Given Tornatore's biography in Wikipedia, I don't think it is, even though it seems while one is watching it that it is. I think it's just his love letter to films.
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It seemed more like a homage to Federico Fellini and the character he created as his alter-ego in "8 1/2," Guido Anselmi played by Marcello Mastroianni. That character, the handsome Italian film director with salt and pepper hair, has an uncanny resemblance to the adult Salvatore. Mastroianni's role became so indelible with the public that people often pictured him in their mind when thinking about Fellini, which IMO who Salvatore was intended to be an extension of. The Guido Anselmi character took on a life on its own with the Broadway adaptation, "9" that was then adapted into a film musical starring Daniel Day-Lewis but with the character renamed as "Guido Contini." One last connection: Compare the name, "Salvatore Di Vita" with "La Dolce Vita" in which Mastroianni is again another one of Fellini's alter-ego.

In Fellini's "I Vitelloni" (clips of this movie among many others were in Cinema Paradiso) that preceded "8 1/2," his alter-ego in that movie (he seemed to like using this device), was the only one among the five young friends to leave town that they were trapped in with no future prospects, very similar to what would have been Salvatore's fate had he not heeded Alfredo's admonition to leave and never come back. Fellini denied using his own childhood for inspiration in his films. However, in the bonus material for "I Vitelloni," one of Fellini's close friends who was also involved in the production shared a secret, that when Fellini's alter-ego departed on the train and said "goodbye," Fellini dubbed his own voice speaking that word, giving a personalized meaning to the act of leaving home. Like Salvatore, Fellini came from a small town (Giancaldo in Sicily for Salvatore and Rimini of the Eastern coast of Italy for Fellini), an experience that provided so much inspiration for his movies. Viewers will find striking similarities in the village feel of Cinema Paradiso in Fellini's "I Vitelloni" and "Amarcord," with the latter based on his 1968 essay, "My Rimini."

I noticed a lot of comments about the nature and plausibility of Salvatore leaving and staying away from his hometown for such a long time considering it's only a 1-hour plane flight away. The strong themes surrounding Fellini's history, if indeed that's the direction Tornatore was going toward, explains why the plot was rigidly kept that way.