HanWay Films has released a first-look image of Oscar-winning actor/director Roberto Benigni as Mastro Geppetto in the live-action version of “Pinocchio,” directed by Matteo Garrone, which has started shooting in Italy. Garrone’s ambitious pic, which will mark Benigni’s return to the big screen after a seven-year hiatus, started principal photography March 18, with an 11-week shoot planned in Tuscany, Puglia, and the Lazio region around Rome. 

Benigni, who won an Oscar for best actor in 1999 for “Life Is Beautiful,” which he also directed, last appeared in a cameo in Woody Allen’s “To Rome With Love” in 2012. In recent years, the beloved Italian showman has been active with his stage adaptation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” which toured in Italy and internationally.