Just as the cameras were set to roll in New Delhi on two major movies based on the life of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, the Indian Government has said 'Cut!' to their Western producers - apparently to avoid upsetting China.
The two movies, picking up on the chic following of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism among some Hollywood stars like Richard Gere, had been planned for release around mid-1997, when China can already expect a lot of adverse publicity surrounding the handover of Hong Kong.
American director Martin Scorsese is planning an uncharacteristic switch to non-violence with a film called Kundan, following the life of the Tibetan leader from his recognition as 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama as a small boy, his upbringing by monks in the Potala palace, and his flight to India in 1959 to escape Chinese rule.
Meanwhile, the French director Jean-Jacques Annaud is planning a US$50 million (HK$385 million) blockbuster based on the book Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer interned by the British in India at the outbreak of World War II. Harrer escaped from his prison camp at Dehra Dun and made it over the Himalayas to Llasa, where he became a tutor to the Dalai Lama.
Scorsese came to India looking for locations in March, and Annaud has recruited about 100 Indian extras and production personnel. Both have been in touch with the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, which has been based in the Indian hill-station of Dharamsala for more than three decades.
But the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has made it known that permission to shoot will not be given soon. The application is likely to be kept 'pending' indefinitely, officials indicated. The Prime Minister, P V Narasimha Rao, is understood to have taken an interest.
The rebuff will not of course stop the producers shooting the films in other mountainous locations, but threatens more delays and costs.