Late Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl gets ready for a rebirth on celluloid. And the setting is India’s own Pune. As Hollywood star Angelina Jolie began shooting scenes for a movie about the life of the slain journalist on Monday, it was an occasion to remember for the film-crazy Pune folks.

According to the production house sources, a spacious bungalow in the Pune suburb of Aundh was chosen for the shoot because the area resembles Karachi, Pakistan, where Pearl and his wife Mariane spent time. The film has been titled A Mighty Heart.

Amid heightened security, Angelina Jolie donned make up as Mariane Pearl, while Dan Futterman transformed himself as Daniel Pearl. Meanwhile photographs of Jolie, Brad Pitt and son Maddox travelling in an autorickshaw got major coverage in the media on Monday morning. Their ride in the three-wheeler rickshaw took them past shops and department stores in downtown Pune. Pitt and Jolie are in India with Maddox, Zahara and Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt in a sightseeing jaunt which they have coupled along with the shoot.

The movie is based on an adaptation of Mariane Pearl's book, A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl, and is being co-produced by Plan B, a production company founded by Brad Pitt and his ex-wife, actress Jennifer Aniston. The Wall Street Journal reporter was abducted and murdered in Pakistan in 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militancy.