Life can be hard for everything and everybody, but how would you like to face the harsh realities of existence on planet Earth everyday as the loathed and lowly cockroach?

Romanian director Giuliano Draguleanu must have been wondering the same thing so he has undertaken a joint venture with partner Ovidiu Halmagean to make a film that examines the adventures of a cockroach and his unlikely hamster sidekick in this fantasy 3D-animation project called “A Hard Life.”

In an interview at this year’s Berlin Film Festival Halmagean was quick to point out the differences between this flick and an earlier big screen animation called “A Bug’s Life,” saying that in this one he and Draguleanu made no attempt to humanize the critters.

Voice-casting has yet to be set for “A Hard Life” and is currently in pre-production. It has been given a pretty sizable budget of $25 million, not bad for a non-Hollywood animation flick.