Bollywood stars Aishwarya Rai and Mallika Sherawat may be making waves abroad but for Italian filmmaker Sergio Scapagnini, Sonali Kulkarni holds sway over all her peers.

Incidentally, Kulkarni is the lead actress in Scapagnini's Italian flick Fire At My Heart, which premiered at the 36th International Film Festival of India on Tuesday.

"Unlike Italian women, who possess only a kind of modern beauty, Sonali's asset is her timeless and classic Indian face, which is why we cast her as an Italian peasant girl in the film," said the filmmaker. an Italian peasant girl in the film," said the filmmaker. Kulkarni had also starred in Scapagnini's 1995 English venture 'Vrindavan Film Studios'. Her desi acting credits include powerpacked performances in Daayraa, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Dil Chahta Hai and a part in Gurindar Chadha's Bride and Prejudice.

"I have to thank filmmaker Goutam Ghose for having discovered her. It was he, who suggested that we cast Sonali, when we were scouting for an Indian actress ten years ago," the director said.

According to Scapagnini, Kulkarni - a regular feature in Indian art house cinema - has certainly proved her credentials as an actress.

"Sonali is a very committed actress. She came to Italy two months before shooting began for Fire At My Heart to rehearse and learn Italian from my daughters," he said.

Unfortunately, Kulkarni's efforts to learn Italian for the film were not quite up to the mark and her lines had to be dubbed.

"Although she was mouthing the Italian words perfectly, her accent was not perfect, which is why we had to redub and another Hungarian actor's voice for the film," Scapagnini said.

Kulkarni's first Italian project sees her pitted against the likes of international superstar Omar Sharif and other European stalwarts.

A period film set in 1815 in Italy, Fire At My Heart traces the journey of a wounded officer Eugenio, who is returning home from the battlefields. He falls in love with a village belle Graziella, played by Kulkarni, whom he meets after being rescued from a sea-storm.

The film, subtitled in English, is slated for a worldwide release in February 2006, Scapagnini said.