The Fundy Film Society

Italian for Beginners

Winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Italian For Beginners is a tale that delights with its whimsical characters and romantic charm. Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen) is a bumbling, recently widowed pastor, newly arrived to preside over a small Copenhagen suburb. Still recovering from the shock of his wife’s death, he accepts an invitation from Jørgen, the friendly but shy hotel receptionist, to join a local Italian-for-beginners class. This sets an unlikely round-robin of romance in motion, as Andreas joins accident-prone pastry shop assistant Olympia, hairdresser Karen, former soccer player and rude waiter Halv-Finn and Guilia, who already knows Italian but takes the class because she has a crush on Jørgen. Thrown together by happenstance, this eclectic collection of lonely, unhappy classmates discovers, in Italian, the language of love and sides of themselves they never knew they had.

“The Italian might be for beginners, but the delicious comedy is for romantics of all ages … [with] the thrill of love during those pulse-pounding, breathtaking, early moments when the world becomes a different place. If anything, Italian For Beginners shows that a Dogme film, even one that faithfully observes those vows of real lights, no music and handheld cameras, can be as old-fashioned as a George Cukor comedy.” – Hollywood Reporter

“Italian For Beginners is a charming Danish comedy…what is appealing about it [is] the freshness and quirkiness of its characters.” – Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times