My name is Aarilee Lorenzen and I am thankful for receiving the ICC Massimo Bonavita Memorial scholarship this year. I took my first Italian course Spring semester of my freshman year at the University of Minnesota; at that time, I was just adding an extra course and Italian was something I had never had the opportunity to study before.

Of course, the language has been fun to learn but what has really captivated me are some of the cultural topics introduced in classes, some of which have inspired some of the research I have done in my anthropology classes. Right now, I am talking a documentary film class with Prof. Fabbri which has been very insightful as to how film may be a valuable tool for ethnography.