Skip to main content

International Film Series to Show Italian Film

Share on:

Posted on Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Westminster College's Jake Erhardt International Film Series will conclude the semester with the 1992 Italian film Ciao, Professore Tuesday, Nov. 29, at 7 p.m. in the Sebastian Mueller Theater of McKelvey Campus Center.

The event is free and open to the public.  A short introduction will be given and a discussion will follow.

In the film, a bureaucratic snafu sends a portly, middle-aged northern Italian to teach third grade in a poor town outside Naples.  His first challenge is to increase attendance and then convince his students that classroom learning has real-world payoffs.  North-South contrasts abound, including a hilarious soliloquy on the nature of Switzerland.

Additional information on the film is available here.

The International Film Series is named in honor of its founder, Dr. Jacob Erhardt, professor of German emeritus at Westminster College.  Erhardt, who taught at Westminster from 1968 until his retirement in 2004, served as chair of his department from 1970-1986, was named the Language Educator of the Year by the Pennsylvania State Modern Languages Association, translated into English Robert Reitzel's Adventures of a Greenhorn, and was recognized by the National Endowment for the Humanities as an outstanding member.

Contact Dr. Deborah Mitchell, Westminster professor of English and film studies and coordinator of the film series, at (724) 946-7030 or email for more information.