Selección de Material Cinematográfico en la Ense？anza de un Idioma Extranjero desde una Perspectiva Intercultural

the aim of this article is to help language teachers choose films effectively, in order to use them in their teaching process. for this, first a bibliographical research on the importance of films in language teaching was carried out, with particular emphasis on cultural aspects. this research was conducted mostly with italian texts and materials; however, the results can be applied to any foreign language teaching context. then, the criteria that should help choose a movie were established. these criteria refer to the public -age, cultural background and linguistic proficiency- and to the movie -topic, intercultural problems, setting (space and time) and type of language used. finally, a movie was chosen to be used with second year students of italian at the school of modern languages of the universidad central de venezuela, following the criteria outlined before. it is concluded that films are an important means to spread a language and a culture, and also, that in order to fully exploit their potential, a language teacher needs to follow some criteria for a rational and effective choice.