Silvio Muccino, brother of Pursuit of Happyness director Gabriele, will direct his first feature film entitled Talk to Me About Love (Parlami d'Amore) based on a book of the same name that he co-wrote with Carla Vangelista.

Talk to Me About Love is a romance focusing on four intersecting stories and the transformative power of love. Published by Rizzoli, the book has sold 250,000 copies since was published a year ago.

Muccino will also star in the film, which will be produced by Cattleya and Rai Cinema with 01 distribution. The project will shoot this summer for a 2008 release.

Silvio, who is Gabriele's younger brother, got his start as an actor in two of his sibling's films: 2004's Remember Me (Ricordati di Me) and 1999's But Forever in My Mind (Come te nessuno mai), the latter of which the brothers co-wrote.

He has also starred in and co-write local hits What Will become of Us' (Che Ne Sara' di Noi') and My Best Enemy (Mio Migliore Nemico) and starred in Love Manual (Manuale D'Amore). All three films were produced by Aurelio and Luigi De Laurentiis' Filmauro.

Producer Marco Chimenz of Rome-based Cattleya calls Silvio Muccino 'extremely intelligent.' Chimenz also told ScreenDaily.com: 'We feel there are not many actors that can just open a film by themselves, but (we think that) Muccino is one that can.'