Dia Mirza looks all set to make her directorial debut with a romantic dramedy next year. The pretty actress took her first step to moving behind the camera with this week's release, Love Breakups Zindagi. She is a co-producer of the film along with the film's hero Zayed Khan and its debutant director, her 'good friend' Sahil Sangha. "Dia has been enthusiastic about taking up film direction for quite some time now. While working on Love Breakups Zindagi, she got a first-hand experience of film making. She keenly observed Sahil's direction process on the sets of the film and is finally ready to go for it herself," said a source.

The film that will mark Dia's directorial debut is scheduled to go on floors later this year or early next year and will be slated for release in the second half of 2012. "She is yet to think of a title but has more or less decided on the script for the film, which will be a romantic comedy drama," the source said.

Like Love Breakups Zindagi, Dia will once again co-produce her directorial effort with Zayed and Sahil. However, depending on the necessities of the final draft of the script, she will take a call on whether she or Zayed will be part of the cast. An official announcement about Dia's film will be made soon, after the release of Love Breakups Zindagi.

If Dia does decide to don the director's hat, she will be one of only a few Indian actresses to make the transition. While senior actresses such as Hema Malini, Aparna Sen and Deepa Sahi have dabbled in direction, not many from the current crop of heroines have shown interest in calling the shots from behind the camera.

Hema Malini made her directorial debut way back in 1993 with Dil Aashna Hai, starring Shah Rukh Khan-then a rising actor-and the late Divya Bharti. Aparna Sen is a veteran filmmaker, whose resume boasts of several contemporary art house gems including Mr And Mrs Iyer, 36 Chowringhee Lane, The Japanese Wife, 15 Park Avenue, Paramitar Ek Din and her latest, Iti Mrinalini. Deepa Sahi made her directorial debut last week with the romantic comedy, Tere Mere Phere. Another young heroine who made her directorial debut earlier this year was TV actor Deepshika Nagpal.

However, her debut effort, Yeh Dooriyan, failed to make much of an impact. Coming back to Dia, her acting career depends in a big way on Love Breakups Zindagi considering she has not seen much action in Bollywood over the past few years. Her last release was last year's dud, Hum Tum Aur Ghost. While some of her upcoming projects include Deepak Tijori's Kayanaat, Shoojit Sarkar's Johnny Mastana and Manmohan Mahapatra's Bits And Pieces.