"White Noise" director Vinta Nanda is mighty tickled. She is "making one film on Mahesh Bhatt and another for him".

The first would have everything about Bhatt's life - from his eccentric genius and legendary films to his current pet passion of making masala films. The second would most probably have Mallika Sherawat.

"I'm making a thriller for Bhatt," Nanda told IANS. "We would probably work with Mallika Sherawat. I'm very excited about working with her.

"It'll be one sexy thriller, with lots of hot stuff. It'll be lots of fun," laughed Nanda, who has just returned from Cannes.

The film on Mahesh Bhatt would span 30 years of Bollywood and look at the evolution of Indian cinema through the wins and losses of one much toasted filmmaker who has turned - after three decades of making some of the country's best films - into a mass market, low budget, relatively nondescript filmmaking machine.

"The film would be structured like, there's Mahesh Bhatt living life to the fullest, with all the madness that true creativity brings, and in the background 30 years of Indian cinema is playing out," said Nanda, whose last film was on the hype and hypocrisies of the television industry.

Nanda was the creator of one of India's biggest and best-running serials ever - "Tara" on Zee TV. Full of powerful woman characters the serial redefined television viewing and talked of many taboo subjects in Indian society, including infidelity and divorce.

She said she was impressed with Sherawat's ability to exude oomph and believes she is the next biggest thing out of India. "She has potential to really make it on the global stage," said Nanda.

"You should have seen the impact she had at Cannes. Everyone I met, the moment I mentioned I was from India, said, 'Oh, India! Do you know Mallika Sherawat? Let's go meet her! It was fantastic the way she carried herself.

"Mallika has the guts and gumption to really carry her career on to a different league."

--Indo-Asian News Service