Casablanca to get Indian remake

The new version, entitled Ezham Mudra, will relocate the Humphrey Bogart film to contemporary south India.

Actor Suresh Gopi will play a restaurant owner who helps his lover, a Tamil separatist rebel fighting the Sri Lankan government, escape from India.

Director Rajeev Nath told Reuters that his film would be "a tribute" to the original and that he hoped to hold the premiere in Casablanca itself.

"As a student of films, I had watched this great classic 20 times," he said.

Not political

Made in 1942, Casablanca tells of a cynical bar owner in wartime Morocco drawn into the conflict when an old flame, played by Ingrid Bergman, arrives looking for help.

Directed by Michael Curtiz, it was named the third greatest American film of all time by the American Film Institute earlier this year.

Nath told Reuters the Malayalam-language film was not political and would not side with any faction in the ongoing conflict.

Ezham Mudra, which casts Bollywood actress Mandira Bedi in the Bergman role, is scheduled for a 2008 release.

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