October premiere for Great Siege 3D film

The Diary, a computer animated 3D film which recounts the story of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, is expected to premiere on the big screen in Malta next month.

Brought to life by Italian film company Onion Studios, the film is a 50-minute work of art, which has been produced using revolutionary techniques adopted by Walt Disney for the Oscar-winning film Shrek.

Onion Studios, based in Tuscany, brings together a number of experts in the field of computer graphics, film and comics, focused on producing films for children.

A demo of how The Diary was made as well as clips of the film were last night presented during a music-literary evening organised by the National Festivities Committee to mark Victory Day.

Scenes of the film have already been screened on the Rai 3's programme Comminciamo Bene... Estate and was very well received.

The film's director, Paolo Bertola, said the team had faced some technical challenges especially when it came to synchronising hundreds of computer-generated soldiers for the battle scenes and the crumbling of city walls, among others.

Onion Studios is now in the painstaking process of editing the film, a task made harder by the fact that The Diary is being dubbed in three different languages - English, Italian and Maltese.

The dubbing in English and audio work has been left in the capable hands of Audio Italia in Padua.

For this mammoth project, Onion Studios has brought on board a number of Maltese experts who have been working hand-in-hand with the company for the past 14 months.

The studio's local representative, Claire Zammit, under the supervision of university lecturer Charles Cassar, carried out the research, while Paul Abela provided the film's musical score.

The film, created from scratch in the studios, is inspired from the diary of Francesco Balbi di Corregga who lived in Malta during the Great Siege and gave an eyewitness account of what was happening.

Some of Malta's best voices are being used for the local version which is being produced by Mario Parascandalo in Lunik Digital Studios. These include Charles Arrigo as Grandmaster La Valette, Charles Abela Mizzi as the narrating voice of Balbi and Manuel Cauchi as Suleiman.

"We are very excited with this project and are curious to see the reaction of the children when they watch it at the cinema," Mr Bertola said.

The film, which has a budget of about €200,000, is expected to be shown in Italian schools and exclusively on the big screen in one local cinema by next month.

Onion Studios has already clinched the prestigious first prize at the Giffoni Festival, in Salerno in 2000 for its fantasy film Apuania which told the story of witches, knights and dragons. This film festival is one of the biggest in Europe.

Mr Bertola said he looked forward to creating another film with Malta and this would likely be a fantasy story.

The film is under the patronage of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Culture and Vittoriosa council.