Erri De Luca’s Italian bestseller “Tu, mio” to get film treatment

PanARMENIAN.Net - “Machete” writer Álvaro Rodriguez and “Out in the Dark” director Michael Mayer are attached for a movie version of Erri De Luca’s Italian bestseller “Tu, mio” (“You, mine”), Variety has learned exclusively.

Paola Porrini Bisson and Oh!pen Productions are producing. Rodriguez and Mayer are adapting De Luca’s 1998 novel.

The book is set in post-war Italy and tells of a teenage boy who falls for an older woman with a dark secret. De Luca, whose “The Weight of the Butterfly” is in development with Dean Zanuck, was at the center of a free-speech trial in Italy for most of last year.

Bisson previously produced the Tribeca winner “The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars,” “A Musical Imprinting” and “Trees That Walk,” all penned by De Luca.

Mayer’s first feature, “Out in the Dark,” had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to play over 125 film festivals. He is currently developing a feature adaptation of Brian Malloy’s YA novel “The Year of Ice” and a half-hour relationship comedy series with Israel’s Channel 10.

In addition to “Machete,” Rodriguez wrote “Shorts” and recently completed two seasons of “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series” for the El Rey Network. He won the 2016 Mark Medoff Excellence in Writing Award and is developing “Outlaw,” a historical drama set in 1850s California with a Mexican hero from MGM TV.

Rodriguez is managed by Bob Sobhani and Jennie Frisbie at Magnet Management. Mayer is managed by Gary Ventimiglia and they are both with Stone, Genow, Smelkinson, Binder & Christopher.