Tibet Goes Hollywood" said the Newsweek cover, while the British newspaper The Independent wrote of a "love affair" between Beverly Hills and the high plateau. There are seven major films on Tibet in the pipeline this year, including a biography of the Dalai Lama, Kundun, and an adaptation of the well-known book Seven Years in Tibet. It is in the role of Heinrich Harrer, the main protagonist and author of Seven Years in Tibet, that Brad Pitt stares solemnly out of the Newsweek cover. "The film is a tremendous honour for me," says Mr Harrer proudly, speaking to us in front of his mountain home, high above the village of Hüttenberg in the Austrian province of Carinthia. "Fifty million people have read my book, but Brad Pitt will draw a movie-going audience in the billions, including many people who have never even heard of Tibet."
In a sense, it seems only right that Mr Harrer´s character should personify Tibet´s entry into the wide-reaching world of films. For it was his book that introduced Tibet to entire generations around the world since it was first published in 1953.
Mr Harrer´s story is certainly the stuff of film. On his way back from a climbing expedition to Nanga Parbat 1939, due to the outbreak of World War II, he was interned in a British prison in India because he was German. Along with another internee, he made a dramatic escape to Tibet and wandered about the then forbidden plateau for more than a year before he reached Lhasa on 15 January 1946. There he served the 11-year-old Dalai Lama as a teacher of English, mathematics, geography and photography, while introducing many innovations into the city that amazed the Tibetans. He got along well with the Tibetans and lived in the city until 1951 when the Chinese invasion of Tibet forced him to flee in a hurry.
After the Tibetan revolt in 1959 and subsequent exile of the Dalai Lama, Mr Harrer has stood firmly by his Tibetan friends. His has been one of the loudest Western voices against the Chinese occupation. In 1987, he expressed outrage when German Chancellor Helmut Kohl visited the Chinese rulers in Lhasa, the first Western head of government to do so. Now, he says he is happy that there is going to be a film version of Seven Years in Tibet for "that will be a big blow to Chinese propaganda".