On Tuesday, we headed to the walled medieval hill town of Spoleto in southern Umbria. We had decided to visit because of its ancient history and also because an Italian show we watch, Don Matteo, is being filmed there. The episodes, in Italian with English subtitles, help us learn Italian and are even more fun to watch when we are familiar with the shooting locations. The first eight seasons were shot in Gubbio, which we visited last year.
Don Matteo (2000) Subtitles
A fun and interesting way to help improve foreign language learning is through TV. Len and I watch a number of Italian detective series including Commissario Montalbano, filmed in Sicily, and Don Matteo, filmed in Gubbio. Besides hearing the language, (and having English subtitles!) the shows often provide lovely views of their filming locations.
If you want to watch Italian TV shows, OTTs offer a range of exciting and different genres to explore in this category. However, the most favorite genre of Italian shows is Drama. Most of these shows are dubbed in English, while to watch some, you may need to switch on subtitles.
The language learning program FluentU has a tailor-made video player that can solve these problems. The platform features hundreds of Italian videos that come from real sources, like movie trailers, drama clips and cooking shows. And when you find something that interests you, each video is equipped with interactive subtitles so learning a new Italian word in context is as simple as hovering over the word.
It explores family, career, village life, love and politics. There are some particularly graphic images in this film, so sensitive views should be aware of this issue. Also, some viewers reported difficulty seeing the subtitles.
A 17-year-old travels from village to city looking for his father in this first feature (2005) by mainland Chinese director Ying Liang, who used friends and relatives as his cast and a borrowed video camera. In Mandarin with subtitles. 100 min. aRiver East, 4:30 PM
A bouncer at a dance club in Athens, while suffering a midlife crisis, has an accident on Christmas Eve that he interprets as a religious sign. Vangelis Seitanidis directed his own script. In Greek with subtitles. 84 min. aLandmark, 9:15 PM
winning drama about a 15-year-old (David Kross) navigating his way through a crime-ridden, run-down neighborhood with a large number of Turkish immigrants. In German with subtitles. 98 min. aRiver East, 4:15 PM
Gyorgi Palfi, who wrote and directed the 2002 Hukkle, directed and cowrote this Hungarian black comedy based on stories by Lajos Parti Nagy, about the son, father, and grandfather in a dysfunctional family. In Hungarian with subtitles. 91 min. aLandmark, 6 PM
This anime feature was adapted from a short story by Yasutaka Tsutsui, about a machine that allows its users to enter the dreams of others. Satoshi Kon (Tokyo Godfathers) directed. In Japanese with subtitles. 90 min. aLandmark, 11 PM
A Bangkok taxi driver obsessed with a radio show devoted to golden oldies starts to become attached to one of his customers, a high-priced prostitute. Kongdej Jaturanrasamee directed. In Thai with subtitles. 104 min. aLandmark, 7:15 PM
Returning to his hometown from Milan, a middle-aged professional (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) tries to mediate an ongoing feud between two of his three brothers but only gets drawn in. Writer-director Sergio Rubini creates a fair amount of tension in the first half of this Italian drama, as he delineates the turbulent relationships between the four very different men. But after a murder is committed the film devolves into a fairly standard whodunit with an irritatingly tidy resolution. Rubini, a veteran character actor, casts himself as a sleazy, violent loan shark and gives a memorably menacing performance. With Paolo Briguglia, Massimo Venturiello, and Emilio Solfrizzi. In Italian with subtitles. 112 min. (JK) aLandmark, 8 PM
For his first fiction feature, actor and documentarian Nils Tavernier filmed a modern ballet at the Opera National de Paris about a princess from a poor country where dance is forbidden. In French with subtitles. 97 min. aRiver East, 4 PM
An aging writer (Patrick Bauchau of The State of Things) who has lost his wife and child falls in love with a younger woman in this French feature by Viviane Candas. In French with subtitles. 92 min. aLandmark, 6:30 PM
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