Italian Animator Bruno Bozzetto Announces Plans for Feature Film

ROME – Italian animator Bruno Bozzetto, best known for his political satires and his hapless reoccurring character Signor Rossi, on Monday announced plans for his first full-length feature project in 36 years.

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Bozzetto, who was nominated for an Oscar in 1991 for his short film Grasshoppers -- a film seen as a precursor to the popular insect-themed animated films of the late 1990s, Bugs Life and Antz -- said his next project will be called Viavia, which could loosely be translated as “Gogo.”
 
The animated film will be set in a future where traffic problems are far worse than today. In the story, the “Viavia” is an invention that allows people who move around despite the debilitating traffic.
 
Bozzetto 73, said the project already has the backing of Italy’s Ministry of Culture, and he claims co producers from Canada, France and Germany have all expressed interested in the project. But he said his dream would be to work with Pixar Studios in California, though not specifically on this project.

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“Everything Pixar does is top notch and great fun,” Bozzetto said in a story published on Quotidiano.net, a network of regional Italian newspapers. “I met [Pixar Chief Creative Officer] John Lasseter and it was very touching to find out that he knew my films. He invited me to speak to his Pixar colleagues. I’d like to collaborate with them on a creative project, at the stage where stories are born. It’s a dream of mine.”
 
Bozzetto did not say when work on Viavia would start or when the film would be released.