Seven Stones Granted Access for Tibet Doc

LONDON, February 22: Seven
Stones Media has received permission to film a documentary series in Tibet that
has been commissioned by BBC Four.

The documentary, A Year
in Tibet, follows a calendar year
inside the secret confines of a Tibetan monastery and charts the lives of those
living in Gyanste, the small town that surrounds it. The 5×1-hour series
examines the reality of life today from Tibetans living under Chinese rule.

A Year in Tibet was commissioned for BBC Four by Richard Klein,
and it is a co-production between Seven Stones Media and Mosaic Films. BBC Worldwide
will distribute it internationally. The series is written, produced and
directed in the cutting room by Peter Firstbrook with Sun Shuyun as location
director. It will air on BBC Four in spring 2008.

“Getting under the skin of
Tibetan society and filming for a year amongst a deeply religious community and
with the people who surround the monastery has not only been a huge logistical
challenge, but a unique opportunity to explore one of the last outposts of a
once medieval society and how it now has to survive as part of modern China,”
said Seven Stones’ executive producer, Adam Alexander.

Series producer Peter
Firstbrook, who filmed Lost on Everest in Tibet in 1999, added: “This exciting project took over two years
to negotiate with the authorities and over a year to film and promises to be a
series unlike anything seen before on British television.”

—By Ned Berke