The film will be based on a comic he co-authored on his early-life experience with the violence of the Neapolitan Mafia and how exposing them irrevocably changed his life.
The cartoon, Sono Ancora Vivo (I'm Still Alive) is taken from the graphic novel of the same name that Saviano, 43, wrote and Israeli comics artists Asaf Hanuka illustrated, Variety reported Monday.
It will be Saviano's first cinema work on the Camorra since Matteo Garrone's 2008 film Gomorrah, based on Saviano's bestelling expose' of the same name that forced him into round-the-clock police protection.
Sono Ancora Vivo delves into how the writer's life was transformed after he lifted the lid on the Naples Mob and in particular the bloody and powerful Casalesi clan, whose death threats earned him his life with a constant police escort.
After the release of the film version of Gomorrah, which won second prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Saviano's life became even more protected and he found it hard to keep up an ordinary family existence.
Gomorrah, a play on Camorra, later inspired a TV series of the same name which was an international hit.
Hanuka is one of Israel's top cartoonists and worked on Ari Felman's 2008 reflection on the war in Lebanon in 1982, Waltz with Bashir, which won the 2009 Golden Globe for best animated feature.
Sono Ancora Vivo is an international coproduction of MAD Entertainment and Lucky Red (Italy), GapBusters (Belgium) and SIPUR (Israel).
It has been written by Saviano with Alessandro Rak, Filippo Bologna, and Stefano Piedimonte.
The project will be presented in Bordeaux during the upcoming Cartoon Movie Festival running from Tuesday to Thursday, March 7-9, in the French city.
ANSA
