Gurinder Chadha ("Bend it Like Beckham", "Bride and Prejudice") talked with Brit trade paper The Daily Telegraph the other day and spoke of her next film - the big budget "I Dream of Jeannie" movie adaptation for Sony.

In a surprise twist though, forget all this talk of who'll be playing new incarnations of Larry Hagman or Barbara Eden, ths one is going to be quite different - the script Chadha is filming explains how Jeannie became a genie, and starts in Arabia in 200BC. "She's a Muslim girl, and the story is about Muslims. The notion of women in burkas on a big Hollywood screen is pretty radical" says Chadha.

She's also learned some lessons quickly about the US film system - "I've learned that if you make a film in America, you don't go in to fight the system. No one's bigger than the story. It's my opportunity to go there and make this huge multi-million dollar picture with lots of computer-generated imagery and special effects. That's something boys usually do. Girls never get a chance to do that – never mind girls from Southall".

Thanks to 'Tergo'