French director Eric Valli, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his feature Himalaya in 2000, has been signed up by Munich-based production house Friends Production to direct the ethnological road movie The Tibet Project (working title).

Based on a screenplay by Valli, the Canadian-based, Oscar-nominated Chinese screenwriter and director Wang Shui-Bo (Sunrise Over Tianamen Square) and Tibet expert Bruno Baumann, the Euros 6.55m project will be filmed at locations in the Tibetan provinces of Ngari, U-Tsang, Amdo and Kham over a five month period between April 2003 and the end of March 2004.