Focus Features has acquiredinternational sales rights excluding Italy on Roberto Benigni's The TigerAnd The Snow.

The film, written anddirected by and starring two-time Academy Award-winner Benigni, is inpost-production and will be released first in Italy on Oct 14. Benigni plays a poet desperately wooing thewoman of his dreams until they suddenly find themselves suddenly in Iraq on theeve of war.

Co-star and producerNicoletta Braschi re-teams with Benigni after 1997's runaway hit Life IsBeautiful and 2002's Pinocchio. Jean Reno and Emilia Fox also star.

"Roberto and Nicoletta haveliterally made the cinema experience an incredible joy for millions uponmillions of people around the world," said David Linde, who announced the dealwith fellow Focus Features co-president James Schamus. "We're just thrilled tobe one very small part in bringing that experience to moviegoers again."

The deal was negotiated byFocus with Braschi and NY attorney Sue Bodine of Epstein, Levinsohn, Bodine,Hurwitz and Weinstein.