Italian firm to produce animated feature film about an adventurous gang of kids in Rome.

AMBI Pictures, the Rome-based film production and finance company, is to make its first foray into animation with feature East End.

The family film will be directed by Federico Moccia, Giuseppe Squillaci and Luca Scanferla, who also teamed to write the script. Producers are AMBI Pictures heads Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi.

The story follows eight-year-olds Leo and Lex who get up to mischief in the run down East End area of Rome, which lead to some “wild adventures”.

Iervolino said: “With the worldwide appetite for animated family entertainment continuing to grow, we feel it’s important for AMBI Pictures to establish a footprint in this market and deliver the most intelligent, cutting-edge and commercially viable animated family films in the marketplace.”

East End co-director and co-writer Moccia has penned novels including Three Metres Above the Sky (Tre Metri Sopra Il Cielo), which was adapted as a film in 2004. He has also been the mayor of Rosello, Italy since 2012.

Squillaci is a visual effects supervisor and founder of Italian VFX studio CaneCane, while Scanferla is a writer and independent filmmaker who has made several short films.

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