Roberto Benigni to film the 'Divine Comedy'

Roberto Benigni will base his next feature film on the "Divine Comedy," the 14th-century epic poem by Dante Alighieri. The Italian actor/director plans to start shooting at the end of summer after the tour of his one-man show "Tutto Dante" comes to a close.

Benigni has had plenty of time to review his subject matter while performing "Tutto Dante," a one-man show of Dante recitations and exegesis, in Italy, North and South America since 2006. The tour will be drawing to a close on August 6 in Florence.

Then he plans to begin making his ninth feature film to date, eight years after his last production came out, "The Tiger and the Snow." Catapulted to world fame by his Holocaust comedy "Life Is Beautiful" in 1997, Roberto Benigni has had little contact with the world of cinema in recent years, save an appearance in the film Woody Allen shot in Italy, "To Rome With Love."