Venice Days has announced that the opening film for 2012 will be Pinocchio directed by Enzo d’Alo and scripted by Umberto Marino.

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The new film is said to be as faithful to Carlo Collodi’s original text as possible, and it features illustrations by Lorenzo Mattotti and music by Lucio Dalla. The voice cast Gabriele Caprio, Rocco Papaleo, Paolo Ruffini, Micheli Maurizio, and Pino Quartullo.

The film will screen on Aug 30 in the Sala Darsena, just after The Women’s Tales, a women’s creativity collaboration with Miu Miu.

“To open with an animated film, with a work of Italian craftsmanship which has no better representative symbol than Collodi’s novel, seemed like the most beautiful way to pay homage to an extraordinary group of artists and to give the colours of fantasy to a programme we wanted to be young, courageous, entertaining and iridescent,” said Giorgio Gosetti, Venice Days director.

“A red and yellow comma crosses the cloud of a storm, an animated thunderbolt in the reign of the terrestrials! It bumps into things, crashes, touches you and escapes! Let him run, it’s…. Pinocchio!”

Enzo d’Alò adds: “It was the most difficult, absorbing, experimental and tricky film I have ever made. Over three hundred artists shared my joy and pain for over four years, in an extraordinary atmosphere of collaboration. You can see all of this in every scene from Pinocchio, our very own darling in search of happiness.”

Pinocchio is produced by Cometafilm, Iris Productions, Walking the Dog and 2D-3D Animation, working between Italy, France, Belgium and Luxemburg, and is distributed in Italy by Lucky Red and internationally by Rezo Films.

Andrea Occhipinti of Italian distributor Lucky Red, added: “Enzo d’Alò returns to the big screen with every element of Italian excellence. A universal fable loved around the world, a director considered at the European level to be a brilliant and original talent, Mattotti’s drawings which show the Tuscan landscape and countryside in a way never seen before in an animated film, and the last film of one of the greatest singer-songwriters, Lucio Dalla. When I saw it, I felt extremely emotional. I am sure that audiences of all ages will be bowled over. It is a true joy to me that the film will be opening Venice Days.”

French director Hervé Lasgouttes’ Crawl will close Venice Days, and Il risveglio del fiume segreto, directed by Alessandro Scillitani will close Venice Nights.