The event “Italian in a Changing World” will take place today in Rome, at the Headquarters of the Dante Alighieri Society. The event is part of the process begun in 2014 with the Joint Action on the Italian Language, whose second edition was held in Florence on 17 and 18 October 2016. After the opening remarks by Andrea Riccardi, President of the Dante Alighieri Society, the programme schedules contributions by Mario Giro, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Rosa De Pasquale, Head of the Department at the MIUR, Claudio Marazzini, President of the Accademica della Crusca and Giancarlo Kessler, the Swiss Ambassador to Italy.
Vincenzo De Luca, Director General for Cultural and Economic Promotion and Innovation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), will illustrate the new data on the dissemination of the Italian language in the world, with more than two million students in the academic year 2015-2016, and will make an overview of the activities carried out by the Ministry and the initiatives that it intends to launch in view of the next edition of the Joint Action as, for example, an interactive Italian course for Chinese students. He will also present the new English version of the Italian Language Portal.
The introductory session will be followed by a Round Table on “Italian at the Cinema, Italian in the Cinema”, to explore the connection between Italian and the cinema by drawing inspiration from the theme of the 17th Week of the Italian Language in the World, which is taking place between 16 and 22 October under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic. The debate panel will include Roberto Cicutto, President of the Istituto Luce Cinecittà, Francesco Rutelli, President of ANICA, actor Fabrizio Gifuni, screenwriter Stefano Rulli and Swiss film director Niccolò Castelli.
The morning will continue with a debate on the training systems and dissemination of the Italian language in schools abroad, to highlight the major innovations introduced by Legislative Decree No. 64 of April 2017.
