A Britain-based film company is making a film on Congress president Sonia Gandhi based on her biography written by journalist Rasheed Kidwai.

Sources close to the production unit said the two-hour film would be directed by noted director Jagmohan Mundra.

A search is currently on a suitable actress to portray Sonia Gandhi.

The film's script is based on Kidwai's book "Sonia - A Biography" (Penguin), which details her early days in the Italian town Orbassano, her days in Cambridge, romance with Rajiv Gandhi, the Gandhi family's initial opposition to the marriage, her time with Indira Gandhi and her act of renouncing the job of Indian prime minister in May 2004.

The sources said that the Britain-based film production house, CEE(I) TV, had secured the film rights of Kidwai's book from Penguin India.

The sources confirmed that the rights running into "several lakh (hundred thousand) rupees" has already been "signed and sealed".

Mundra has directed several films essentially targeting Western audience namely "Sandstorm", "Tropical Heat" and "Monsoon".

To prevent any controversial fallout, Kidwai is understood to have engaged a New Delhi-based Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) law firm to protect his work.

Kidwai declined to confirm or deny his association with the project but said if Penguin had given book rights to a film production house, he would expect the filmmakers not to tinker with the basic spirit of the text.

A Pakistan-based publisher recently released a Pakistani edition of Kidwai's books that has been translated in Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi, Telugu and Malayalam.

CEE (I) TV has been dealing in producing, telecasting and marketing television serials in various languages in India and abroad.