New romantic comedy Little Italy draws from Montreal screenwriter's Italian roots

Montreal screenwriter and playwright Steve Galluccio has long been inspired by his Italian roots. 

While his new movie Little Italy is set in Toronto's Italian neighbourhood, it still has some flavour drawn from Galluccio's Montreal upbringing.

He says that whenever he visits a new city, his first question is always: "Do they have a Little Italy?"

The film itself is a Romeo and Juliet story featuring the two feuding families cast as rival pizzeria owners.

The film stars Hayden Christensen and Emma Roberts, along with Alyssa Milano and Danny Aiello. 

• Hayden Christensen worked in a Toronto pizza shop to prepare for his latest film Little Italy

Galluccio co-wrote the movie with fellow Canadian actor and writer Vinay Virmani.

"He sent me the synopsis. In the beginning it was called Pizza Wars. And I read it and said, 'I'm in. I want to do it,'" said Galluccio.

Virmani and Galluccio worked closely while writing and planning out the film, with the latter introducing two grandparent characters from the rival families who also fall in love.

"You don't really see love stories between two older characters so I thought it would be really sweet. And I love the result," he said.

Galluccio grew up surrounded by Italian culture and tradition which has influenced much of his work, including Mambo Italiano (2003).

Virmani, on the other hand, is of Indian descent, but Galluccio said he had no trouble relating to some of the universal themes in the script.

"The Italian culture, in his case the Indian culture — these are cultures that are steeped in tradition, in family," Galluccio explained. "He totally got Italians."

Galluccio visited the set of the film during production and was lucky enough to be on set during what he calls "one of the most important scenes of the movie" where the whole cast and crew was gathered together.

"I got to meet all the actors, all the stars. It was really interesting because, when you have Emma Roberts and Hayden Christensen, you also have paparazzi that are hiding all over the place. So it felt very Hollywood, it was very cool."

Little Italy opened in Canadian theatres August 24.

With files from CBC's All in a Weekend