Italian for Beginners
| Italian for Beginners | |
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DVD cover
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| Directed by | Lone Scherfig |
| Produced by |
Karen Bentzon Gert Duve Skovlund Peter Aalbæk Jensen |
| Written by | Lone Scherfig Maeve Binchy |
| Starring |
Anders W. Berthelsen Anette Støvelbæk Ann Eleonora Jørgensen |
| Music by | Niels W. Gade (Non-original) |
| Cinematography | Jørgen Johansson |
| Edited by | Gerd Tjur |
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Release date
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Running time
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118 minutes |
| Country | Denmark Sweden |
| Language |
Danish Italian English |
Italian for Beginners (Danish: Italiensk for begyndere) is a 2000 Danish romantic comedy film written and directed by Lone Scherfig. The film stars Anders W. Berthelsen, Lars Kaalund and Peter Gantzler, together with Ann Eleonora Jørgensen, Anette Støvelbæk and Sara Indrio Jensen. The film was made by the austere principles of the Dogme 95 movement, including the use of hand held video cameras and natural lighting, and is known as Dogme XII. However, in contrast to most Dogme films which are harsh and serious in tone, Italian for Beginners is a light-hearted comedy. Made on a low budget of $600,000, the film ranks as the most profitable Scandinavian film in history.
In May 2010, it was officially revealed that writer-director Scherfig "borrowed" part of her plot from the Irish novel Evening Class by Maeve Binchy. Zentropa agreed to pay a non-disclosed compensation to Binchy.
Andreas, a widowed pastor, arrives in a Danish suburb to take over religious duties from the previous pastor who, due to a crisis of faith after his own wife's death, has become irreligious and even punched the organist causing him to be hospitalized. Believing his stay will be temporary Andreas stays in the local hotel where he meets one of the employees, Jørgen Mortensen, who is suffering a crisis as he has been asked to fire the temperamental Hal-Finn who works in the hotel restaurant and is also his best friend.
Hal-Finn goes to visit hairdresser Karen and is immediately attracted to her, though his visit is cut short when she must go to the hospital to attend to her alcoholic mother.
Meanwhile clumsy baker Olympia tends to her disabled and abusive father, who constantly berates her. Olympia decides to join a beginner Italian class in order to feel closer to her Italian mother however the first night she joins the instructor dies. Olympia returns home to find that her own father has died as well. Sometime later she receives the call that her estranged mother has died as well. Showing up to her funeral she meets Karen and the two discover that they are sisters and that their parents split them up when they divorced. In order to protect Olympia, Karen does not tell her about the fact that their mother was not Italian and was an alcoholic.
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