ISLAMABAD A close friend of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a leading British producer and filmmaker have decided to make a feature film on the life and achievements of Ms Bhutto, Dawn has learnt.

Victoria Schofield and Farah Durrani, in collaboration with Insha Taqi Pauwels of Silverstream Productions, are working on the project.

The film, titled “Benazir Bhutto — Destiny”, would be about the extraordinary courage of a daughter, a mother, a politician and a woman who risked all and paid the ultimate price when she was assassinated in Rawalpindi in December 2007, said a member of the team working on the project.

The team is at present finalising the script after which it will choose the cast. The film is expected to be released around the fifth death anniversary of Ms Bhutto in 2012. Victoria Schofield, a renowned writer and broadcaster on Pakistan and Kashmir, was a close friend and contemporary of Benazir Bhutto at Oxford. Their friendship spanned over 30 years from debates at the Oxford Union to Benazir's first premiership in 1988.

Victoria Schofield travelled with Ms Bhutto when she returned to Pakistan after eight years in exile and was with her when terrorists struck her homecoming rally in Karachi in October 2007.

Farah Durrani is an award-winning documentary-maker who has worked extensively in Pakistan and filmed with Benazir Bhutto over 20 years. Farah was in Larkana in 1988 when Ms Bhutto was asked to form her first government and was the last TV journalist to record her interview before the assassination.

Victoria and Farah say they are delighted to work together. Their close association with Ms Bhutto, they add, gives them a unique insight into her world and her life and makes them a perfect match to take her story to the big screen.