Washington (PTI): A top university don in the US has played a key role in 'Basmati Blues', a film set in India and the boardrooms of Manhattan, by clearing cobwebs on the movie's scientific content.

In January this year Norman Ellstrand, a professor of Genetics at the University of California at Riverside, got an unusual call from Josh Welsh, who wanted the scientist to check the script of 'Basmati Blues', a film about love, adventure and ... genetically modified rice, for the accuracy of its scientific content.

A musical comedy set in India and the boardrooms of Manhattan, 'Basmati Blues' features globalization as its theme and depicts "what happens when a multinational agribusiness company makes greed and profits its only guiding principal.

The movie is the combination of Hollywood and Bollywood with the usual complement of Indian and American actors but the stage is predominantly set in India.

The film is expected to be released in American theaters in the of summer 2009 and 'Basmati Blues', will be dubbed in Hindi and other Indian languages. It features five song-and-dance numbers, including one with an Indian flair, the university said in a release.

Using genetically modified agriculture as a backdrop, the films story revolves around a young American woman who works for a US-based company interested in promoting genetically modified rice rice that is created from plants that have had their DNA altered through genetic engineering in India.

"I had never read a movie script before, Ellstrand said. "I didnt realise a script is so skeletal, with so little detail. Im interested in seeing the film when its ready also because Im curious to see how the filmmakers will flesh out the script," Ellstrand has said in the release.