Giovanni Martinelli, a young director, was involved in 1975 by the experimental section of the Ulisse Adorni elementary school in Parma to adapt Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's masterpiece The Little Prince. The idea behind it, Martinelli recalls, was “to shape a more stimulating and engaging teaching method: the children would rewrite the story, reinterpreting it in their own way, working on the screenplay, then acting as actors and even performing lip-sync dubbing in the studio. Titles, costumes, sound commentary, and the execution of original music were later added.” Here, the scenes were filmed inside the circus tent that was set up every year in the Parco della Cittadella in Parma.