Language, culture and didactics of the Italian cinema

The cinema is one of the most exported and appreciated Italian prod-ucts abroad, enough to constitute in itself one of the motivations for the study of our language. However, in studying for LS/L2, film should not be used instrumentally and uncritically as a pretext for doing anthropology. Among the benefits of its use, beyond that of its prestige abroad, is also the possibility to study its form of speech, and the Italian language through it, as well as the history of society and culture that produced it. Film is a familiar and malleable material which allows unlimited re-use and is an excellent tool for the presen-tation of cultural and linguistic models incorporated in ‘authentic’ communicative situations, to conduct a cross-cultural comparison and analysis of nonverbal behaviour.