MADONNA SEES RED

06/16/1999 at 12:00 AM EDT

Madonna is being wooed to star as one of her own personal icons, the controversial Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, reports PEOPLE Magazine stringer Jan McGirk. The political-sexual drama, to be called "Brush with Death," is set to be released in December 1999 and will highlight Kahlo's affair with Bolshevik Leon Trotsky as her marriage to muralist Diego Rivera crumbles. "The film will be entirely shot in Mexico," says producer Sundeep "Bobby" Bedi. "Actors will be chosen once the director is (hired)." Madonna, who, like Kahlo, has dabbled with Hinduism, reportedly collects drawings by the artist, including a self-portrait featuring Kahlo's trademark heavy eyebrows that look like caterpillars making their way across the bridge of her nose.