Dear Friend Hitler, thought to be Indian cinema's first portrayal of the Nazi dictator, is set in the last days of the Third Reich

He is a stalwart of Indian cinema who once played Gandhi on the small screen, while she is a former Miss India best known for her romantic comedy roles. Together, Anupam Kher and Neha Dhupia are to play Adolf Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun in a new Bollywood film set in the last days of the Third Reich.

According to reports, the curiously titled Dear Friend Hitler will centre on the relationships between the Nazi dictator and those who were close to him, including Braun, his long-term lover who he married in his final days in the Berlin bunker. "It aims to take the viewer into close quarters with the enigmatic personality that Hitler was and give a glimpse into his insecurities, his charisma, his paranoia and his sheer genius," a source told the Mumbai Mirror newspaper.

Kher, who was chosen by the film's director, Rakesh Ranjan Kumar, for his apparent resemblance to Hitler, told reporters on Sunday that he was looking forward to the challenge. "I already have an image, I am a known actor, so it will be doubly hard work for me to take away that image," he said. "He's one of the most interesting characters of our times."

Kumar said he considered Hitler the most successful loser of the 20th century and wanted to examine this interpretation.

"As a leader, he was successful. Why did he lose as a human being, what were the problems, what were the issues, what were his intentions, this is what we want to show," he said. The aim is for the film to be an international release.

Perhaps controversially, Kumar also said he hoped to show Hitler's "love for India" and how the Nazi leader indirectly contributed to independence in the subcontinent. He said the movie would be neither a war story, nor a tale of love.

"The film will not show the love life of Adolf Hitler. It will show [the] Eva who had been rarely spoken about in history," Kumar told Indian news agency IANS. "Eva had been Hitler's girlfriend since she was 17 years old. The film shows how she comes into his life in his last days. They got married 42 hours before he died (30 April 1945)."

Hitler has been portrayed on the big screen many times, notably in the 2004 German-language film Downfall, which was nominated for the best foreign language film Oscar, and in the 1973 British film Hitler: The Last Ten Days, in which Alec Guinness played the dictator. Dear Friend Hitler is believed to be the first Indian effort.