A new film about Adolf Hilter has begun filming in Vienna, the German production team behind the production revealed Thursday.

Titled Mein Kampf, the film portrays the Nazi leader as a poor, unrefined youth who shares a room in the Austrian capital with two Jews, producers said at a news conference Thursday.

Filming began in Vienna on Tuesday and is slated to be completed in June. The crew are also planning to film scenes in the German town of Zittau.

The movie is based on a farce written by the late playwright George Tabori, the Hungarian-born German Jewish playwright who died in 2007.

Rather than making reference to Hitler's own notorious tome, Mein Kampf is actually the name one of the Jewish characters chooses for a book he plans to write.

The German producers of the $4.2 million US project (working with Austrian and Swiss co-producers) described the film as an idea "both simple and subversive: The Jew Schlomo Herzl wants to save the young bumpkin from demise in the big city and by so doing helps give birth to a monster."

The project is many years in the making because, among other problems, no one wanted to support it initially, producer Martin Lehwald of Schiwago Film told press on Thursday.

He added that his goal would be to have Mein Kampf find success internationally.

Mein Kampf, directed by Swiss filmmaker Urs Odermatt, is scheduled for release in German theatres in 2009.

With files from the Associated Press