Ciao, Professore!

Ciao, Professore! is a 1992 Italian "fish out of water" comedy film about an elementary school teacher from northern Italy who is sent by mistake to an impoverished town in the Naples region of southern Italy. There he must deal with vast cultural differences and teach chronically truant children who only respect violence and power, especially one young boy who is already caught up in the gangster lifestyle. The film was directed by Lina Wertmüller and stars Paolo Villaggio.The script was inspired by the 1990 Italian bestseller Io speriamo che me la cavo (Me, Let's Hope I Make It). The book is a collection of essays written by the students of Italian primary school teacher Marcello D'Orta, who taught in Arzano, a suburb of Naples. In the essays the children describe many of the difficulties they and their families encounter (poverty, drugs, crime, the disrepair of their city, etc.). Io speriamo che me la cavo was also the original Italian title of the film. Reviewer Marc Vincenti notes of the film's R rating, "Why, you might ask, is a film that is without an iota of sex or violence, and that has completely to do with 8- and 9-year-olds, off limits to that very age group as an audience? Let's just say it was a good thing the subtitler knew how to spell four-letter words."