Billy the Bard does seem to be back in favour, doesn't he?

While Hollywood is abuzz with the news that Shakespeare in Love has bagged a near-record 13 Oscar nominations, the dramatist's works appear to be finding increasing favour with Indian film-makers as well.

Thus, Malayalam director Jayarajbased his Kaliyattam on Othello -- and won Suresh Gopi a national award for acting.

And now it is Macbeth -- the tale of greed and treachery that is being reprised in Telugu under the direction of Mohan Koda.

Koda appears to have centered his story on Lady Macbeth -- or Yellamma, as the film, and the character, are called. The director, whose credits include cinematography for Gautam Ghosh films like Paar and Antarjali, begins shooting in March and will wrap by May.

The film is to be shot in the Warangal and Karimnagar regions, and the characters will speak in the Telengana dialect. The folk style Jaanapadam will be used for four of the songs, with Pandit Santi Kumar providing the score.

The 'supreme star' scores again

Star producer Rama Naidu's Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain is out, and doing its stuff on the Bollywood marquee. Meanwhile, the producer is busy with Napoleonic visions of entering other Indian languages, such as Gujarati and Marathi.

And, wait for this, he is also putting together a project that will see an English film being made in this country -- and, he avers, the result will match Hollywood in terms of standards.

Naidu, meanwhile, is poised to enter the Guinness Book, as the man who has produced the most number of films -- but more of that later.

Now a multi-lingual multi-starrer

Cinematographer Ashok Kumar's Kaama, being billed as a film of unabashedly erotic content, continues to make waves even before its release, with pre-release publicity drumming up a heck of a lot of anticipation among the audience.

Producer Jegadeswara Reddy has, in fact, added Kaama before his name, and is now being referred to as Kaama Jegadeswara Reddy. And while on Reddy, he has announced his next film. Kaamini, the film in question, will star (the chalk with which we are marking up the Bollywood brigade's forays down south is getting worn down to a stub, here) Shilpa Shetty.

Isha does it again