Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media has acquired D. B. Weiss’ script for Kashmir and has signed on Jean-Jacques Annaud to breathe life into it. The plot follows three ex-mercenaries who receive a tip as to the location of a terrorist who boasts a $30 million bounty on his head. Each man has a different motive for taking the journey, and their loyalties are tested when the going gets rough. The film is titled after the Kashmir valley in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir that lies between Pakistan and India. Kashmir has been the bone of contention between the two nations ever since they broke away from the British rule.

Jean-Jacques Annaud, as we all know, is a celebrated French filmmaker. His very first feature Black and White in Color (Noirs et blancs en couleur) bagged the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1976. His other acclaimed French films include L’Amant (The Lover) and La Guerre du feu (Quest for Fire) which won two Cesar’s for Best Film and Best Director and the Oscar for Best Makeup in 1982. His filmography in English include Wings of Courage, Enemy at the Gates, and Seven Years in Tibet.

To Annaud, location is everything. He rarely settles for a filming location other than where the film is set in. He is currently banned from entering China because the local authorities did not like the positive depiction of the Dalai Lama in Seven Years in Tibet. Almost two years after the films release, Annaud divulged to reporters that while filming took place in Argentina, two crews secretly shot footage in Tibet.

Reports confirm that he is currently conducting research in Kashmir. But since the agitated Indian state is not the safest place to be filming right now given the extremely high political tension in the region, location scouts are assessing filming sites in Argentina, Mexico and other parts of India as well.