“Frozen” head animator and longtime Disney veteran Lino DiSalvo is developing an animated feature that tells the coming-of-age story of an Italian teenager who teams up with a mythical beast to save her hometown from an evil curse.

Written by Kissy Dugan and produced by Emmanuel Jacomet for Mediawan Kids & Family with Italy’s Palomar Animation, “Twisted” is among the buzzy projects being pitched this week at Rome’s MIA Market, which runs Oct. 14 – 18.

Inspired by the tall tales DiSalvo heard growing up in an Italian American household in Brooklyn, the story is based on a holiday ritual in the Italian town of Andrista, where villagers perform an annual rite to mark the Feast of the Epiphany by hunting and capturing a mythical beast known as the Badalisc.

Describing what he hopes will be “a fun, big movie” as “super silly with tons of heart,” DiSalvo said: “I just want to bring my awesome, superstitious, loving, wonderful, rich history of growing up Italian to the big screen.”

“Twisted” begins in a small town in the Valcamonica valley in Lombardy, where for centuries the villagers have gathered on the eve of the Epiphany to hunt the Badalisc, a mythical, horned creature dwelling in the forests of the Alpine region. Once captured, the beast is paraded through the town, where he exposes secrets, gossip and petty grievances — a ritual that returns the community to peace and harmony for another year.

In DiSalvo’s telling, however, the tradition takes an unexpected turn. “Our movie picks up where everyone has gotten so sick of this guy revealing everyone’s secrets every year that they kick him out of the town,” he said. “This poor creature! He’s been the star of the show for hundreds of years, and…they banish him from the town.”

The Badalisc’s only crime is doing the one thing that comes naturally to him: telling the truth. “In his heart, all he wants to do…is be part of the community.”

Enter Angelina, a smooth-talking teen who works in the family pizzeria. “Her family has this expectation [that] she’s going to be the next prime minister, she’s going to be a fashion designer — things that Italian families want for you to ‘succeed,’” said DiSalvo. “The irony is that all she wants to do is make pizza.”

Unlike the truth-telling Badalisc, Angelina proceeds from the “flawed philosophy” that “it’s just easier to tell people what they want to hear.” “She basically lies to everybody,” said DiSalvo. As the plot kicks into motion, the young hero — with some help from the banished beast — will eventually be called upon to save the people of Andrista, a quest that gives rise to the central tension of the film: “Is it ever right to lie? Should you always be truthful, even if it means hurting someone?”

Now based in Montreal, the Brooklyn native drew heavily on memories from his childhood while developing “Twisted.” “I grew up in a family that had a pizzeria. All my life experiences took place in that pizzeria. It’s the lens that I viewed the world through,” he said. “Being a first-generation Italian American and belonging to a family that was traditional but also interestingly modern in their take, they had expectations for me. I was going to be the first DiSalvo not to make pizza.”

His success since then would do any Italian grandma proud. Recruited at the age of 20, DiSalvo spent 16 years at Walt Disney Animation Studios, where he served as head of animation on the Academy Award-winning film “Frozen” and worked as a supervising animator on projects including “Tangled” and “Bolt.” After leaving Disney, he served as creative director for Paramount Animation and later as the head of creative at ON Animation Studios in Paris. More recently, he directed and produced the Emmy-nominated Christmas special “Reindeer in Here” for CBS Studios and Paramount+.

For “Twisted,” he’ll join forces with Paris-based powerhouse Mediawan Kids & Family, which in the past year has been growing its slate of prestige animation.

“Ever since I mentioned it to them, Emmanuel Jacomet, the producer there, he’s been championing the project,” said DiSalvo. “He’s believed in it. The leadership there believes in it. Then they started giving me resources to put together writers and…bring my wish list to fruition.”

Early returns have been encouraging, with the animator and his Mediawan partners presenting “Twisted” earlier this year to industry audiences at Annecy and Cartoon Movie in Bordeaux.

“After we showed this proof of concept, the response from the industry has been awesome,” DiSalvo said. “It really warms my heart that theatrical distribution in Europe and South America, there’s a hunger for these personal stories that still feel fantastical and silly and comedic and action-based, told with a very specific point of view.”

Israeli authorities said four Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers were killed and nearly 60 people were wounded in a drone strike on a military base in Binyamina, Israel, which the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group has claimed responsibility for, according to reports.

“Yesterday, a UAV launched by the Hezbollah terrorist organization hit an army base,” the IDF said in a post on X. “[Four] IDF soldiers were killed in the incident. The IDF shares in the grief of the bereaved families and will continue to accompany them.”

Earlier on Sunday, rescue services in Israel reported that nearly 60 people were wounded in the strike, some of them critically.

Israeli media reported that two drones were launched from Lebanon, one of which was intercepted.

US TO DEPLOY MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM, MILITARY PERSONNEL TO ISRAEL

Who was hurt – whether military members or civilians – or what was struck was not immediately clear.

On Thursday, Israel conducted two strikes in Beirut that killed 22 people, and Hezbollah said it was retaliating for the strikes by targeting an Israeli military training camp.

This was the second time in two days that a drone struck Israel.

IDF MEETS LITTLE RESISTANCE FROM HEZBOLLAH AFTER WEEKS OF HITTING TERROR TARGETS, OFFICIALS SAY

Rescue workers at the scene on Sunday night’s UAV/drone strike on Benyamina, Israel. (credit: Tsuriya Zeevi/TPS-IL)

On Sunday, as Israelis were celebrating Yom Kippur, there was a drone strike in a Tel Aviv suburb that damaged the area but did not cause any injuries.

Iran and its proxy terrorist groups launched massive waves of missiles against Israel earlier this year in April and again on Oct. 1. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) has previously been deployed to Israel in 2019, but only for an exercise, Pentagon officials say.

AMERICAN FATHER OF HAMAS HOSTAGE ITAY CHEN PUSHES US, ISRAEL ON ‘PLAN B’ AS NEGOTIATIONS FALTER

Rescue workers at the scene on Sunday night’s UAV/drone strike on Benyamina, Israel. (credit: Tsuriya Zeevi/TPS-IL)

Sunday’s strike came the same day the U.S. said it would send a new air-defense system to Israel to increase protection from missiles.

“The THAAD Battery will augment Israel’s integrated air defense system. This action underscores the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel, and to defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran. It is part of the broader adjustments the U.S. military has made in recent months, to support the defense of Israel and protect Americans from attacks by Iran and Iranian-aligned militias,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

Iran’s massive Oct. 1 missile barrage displayed the threat Iran poses to Israel as a regional power. While debris from hundreds of rockets and missiles rained down on Israeli territory, there were no Israeli fatalities reported.

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and Anders Hagstrom, along with The Associated Press contributed to this report.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas militants, a plan that, if implemented, could trap without food or water hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unwilling or unable to leave their homes.

Israel has issued many evacuation orders for the north throughout the yearlong war, the most recent of which was Sunday. The plan proposed to Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament by a group of retired generals would escalate the pressure, giving Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone.

Those who remain would be considered combatants — meaning military regulations would allow troops to kill them — and denied food, water, medicine and fuel, according to a copy of the plan given to the Associated Press by its chief architect, who says the plan is the only way to break Hamas in the north and pressure it to release the remaining hostages.

The plan calls for Israel to maintain control over the north for an indefinite period to attempt to create a new administration without Hamas, splitting the Gaza Strip in two.

There has been no decision by the government to fully carry out the so-called “Generals’ Plan,” and it is unclear how strongly it is being considered.

One official with knowledge of the matter said parts of the plan are already being implemented, without specifying which parts. A second official, who is Israeli, said Netanyahu “had read and studied” the plan, “like many plans that have reached him throughout the war,” but did not say whether any of it had been adopted. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan is not supposed to be discussed publicly.

On Sunday, Israel launched an offensive against Hamas fighters in the Jabaliya refugee camp north of the city. No trucks of food, water or medicine have entered the north since Sept. 30, according to the U.N. and the website of the Israeli military agency overseeing humanitarian aid crossings.

The State Department spokesperson has said the United States is against any plan that would bring direct Israeli occupation in Gaza.

Human rights groups fear the plan’s potential toll on civilians

Human rights groups say the plan would likely starve civilians and that it flies in the face of international law, which prohibits using food as a weapon and forcible transfers. Accusations that Israel is intentionally limiting food to Gaza are central to the genocide case brought against it at the International Court of Justice, charges Israel denies.

So far, very few Palestinians have heeded the latest evacuation order. Some are elderly, sick or afraid to leave their homes, but many fear there’s nowhere safe to go and that they will never be allowed back. Israel has prevented those who fled earlier in the war from returning.

“All Gazans are afraid of the plan,” said Jomana Elkhalili, a 26-year-old Palestinian aid worker for Oxfam living in Gaza City with her family.

“Still, they will not flee. They will not make the mistake again … We know the place there is not safe,” she said, referring to southern Gaza, where most of the population is huddled in dismal tent camps and airstrikes often hit shelters. “That’s why people in the north say it’s better to die than to leave.”

The plan has emerged as Hamas has shown enduring strength, firing rockets into Tel Aviv and regrouping in areas after Israeli troops withdraw, bringing repeated offensives.

After a year of devastating war with Hamas, Israel has far fewer ground troops in Gaza than it did a few months ago and in recent weeks has turned its attention to Hezbollah, launching an invasion of southern Lebanon. There is no sign of progress on a cease-fire in either front.

Israel’s offensive on the strip has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says over half of the dead are women and children.

People in northern Gaza could be forced to “surrender or starve”

The Generals’ Plan was presented to the parliament last month by a group of retired generals and high-ranking officers, according to publicly available minutes. Since then, officials from the prime minister’s office called seeking more details, according to its chief architect, Giora Eiland, a former head of the National Security Council.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu told a closed parliamentary defense committee session that he was considering the plan.

Eiland said the only way to stop Hamas and bring an end to the yearlong war is to prevent its access to aid.

“They will either have to surrender or to starve,” Eiland said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to kill every person,” he said. “It will not be necessary. People will not be able to live there (the north). The water will dry up.”

He believes the siege could force Hamas to release some 100 Israeli hostages still being held by the group since its Oct. 7 attack that triggered Israel’s campaign. At least 30 of the hostages are presumed dead.

Human rights groups are appalled.

“I’m most concerned by how the plan seems to say that if the population is given a chance to evacuate and they don’t, then somehow they all turn into legitimate military targets, which is absolutely not the case,” said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli organization dedicated to protecting Palestinians’ right to move freely within Gaza.

The copy of the plan shared with AP says that if the strategy is successful in northern Gaza it could then be replicated in other areas, including tent camps further to the south sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

When asked about the plan Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. was going to “make absolutely clear that it’s not just the United States that opposes any occupation of Gaza, any reduction in the size of Gaza, but it is the virtual unanimous opinion of the international community.”

In northern Gaza, aid has dried up and people are trapped

The north, including Gaza City, was the initial target of Israel’s ground offensive early in the war, when it first ordered everyone there to leave. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble since then.

A senior U.N. official said no aid, except for one small shipment of fuel for hospitals, has entered the north since Sept. 30, whether through crossings from Israel or from southern Gaza. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.

COGAT, the Israeli body facilitating aid crossings into Gaza, denied that crossings to the north have been closed but did not respond when asked how many trucks have entered in recent days.

The U.N. official said only about 100 Palestinians have fled the north since Sunday.

“At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees, wrote on X Thursday. “With almost no basic supplies available, hunger is spreading.”

Troops have already cut off roads between Gaza City and areas further north, making it difficult for people to flee, said two doctors in the far north – Mohammed Salha, director of al-Awda Hospital, and Dr. Rana Soloh, at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

“North Gaza is now divided into two parts,” Soloh said. “There are checkpoints and inspections, and not everyone can cross easily.” ___

Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.