Adolescence is the same everywhere and completely specific to where it happens — and that double truth is what makes Caterina va in città work so well in an Italian class. Caterina's family moves from a small provincial town to Rome, and she lands in a middle school divided between two opposing social cliques: the privileged left-wing intellectuals and the right-wing nationalists. She tries to navigate both. The film is sharply funny about Italian political identity, surprisingly honest about teenage social cruelty, and beautifully observed about the gap between the Italy families aspire to and the one they actually inhabit.
For Italian students, the film is a gift. The Rome that Caterina enters is linguistically stratified — the sophisticated Roman Italian of the political families versus the aspirational, slightly awkward Italian of Caterina's father, who wants desperately to matter in the city and never quite does. Students hear class and aspiration in the language without anyone drawing a diagram.
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Key Themes for the Classroom
- Social belonging and identity — Caterina tries on two different social identities and fits neither. Ask: Dove appartiene veramente Caterina? And then: È possibile appartenere a entrambi i gruppi?
- Italian political culture — The film uses middle schoolers' politics to satirize adult Italian political divisions with remarkable precision. Students learn something real about Italian political identity through comedy.
- Father and daughter — Caterina's father's desperate social climbing and his daughter's embarrassed affection for him is one of the film's most tender threads. The vocabulary of parental ambition and filial loyalty runs throughout.
Scene to use: Caterina's first day at the Roman school, where she's assessed, categorized, and pulled toward both factions simultaneously. The Italian dialogue here is fast and socially loaded — nicknames, regional dismissals, status signals. Ask: Come parlano i ragazzi romani diversamente da Caterina? Students identify specific linguistic markers of class and origin, which is advanced sociolinguistic analysis presented as plot.
Low-prep classroom activity: Give students a brief scenario in Italian: they've just arrived at a new school and two very different friend groups both want them. They must write a short text message in Italian to a friend back home explaining the situation — using informal Italian, at least one expression of social anxiety, and one honest observation about what each group is really like.
What to listen for: The film's most revealing linguistic moments are in Caterina's silences. She is from a provincial town and is acutely aware of how she speaks in comparison with her Roman classmates — their slang, their confidence, their assumption that their Italian is the right Italian. Have students notice when Caterina speaks and when she doesn't. Ask: Quando parla Caterina? Quando tace? The pattern reveals the social cost of linguistic difference more directly than any vocabulary list.
The full Italian lesson plan for Caterina va in città is ready at filmarobics.com/products/caterina-va-in-citta — $29.95.
Students walk away from Caterina va in città having heard Italian class and politics embedded in adolescent drama — and having recognized, in a Roman middle school, something uncomfortably close to their own.
The full Italian lesson plan for Caterina va in città is ready at filmarobics.com/products/caterina-va-in-citta — $29.95.
📬 Stay in the loop. New lessons added regularly — join the list to hear when your film is available.
Students walk away from Caterina va in città having heard Italian class and politics embedded in adolescent drama — and having recognized, in a Roman middle school, something uncomfortably close to their own.
