Savor Cinema

The Penguin Lessons is a 2024 comedy-drama film directed by Peter Cattaneo based on the 2015 memoir by Tom Michell, a British teacher who taught at a boys’ boarding school in Argentina in the 1970s. While there, he rescued a penguin which he found soaked with oil on a beach in the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este. He saved the penguin which then kept following him and so he took it back to the school, where it became a popular pet.

Adapted by Jeff Pope from Tom Michell’s memoir, the film stars Steve Coogan as Michell and Jonathan Pryce as the headmaster of the school. The film was shot in Spain in 2023. It premiered as a gala presentation at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.