Italian Animation Auteur Alessandro Rak Tackles Search For Dalai Lama in New Project ‘The Little Prince of Shangri-La’ – Watch Teaser (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian animation auteur Alessandro Rak – best known for European Film Award-winner “The Art of Happiness” and Neapolitan mob fable “Cinderella The Cat” – is at work on a new project titled “The Little Prince of Shangri-La” set in an imaginary Tibet and involving the search for the Dalai Lama.

Rak’s new work, which follows “Yaya and Lenny — The Walking Liberty,” that launched in 2021 from Locarno, was unveiled earlier this month at the Cartoon Movie co-production and pitch forum in Bordeaux, France.

As seen in this exclusive teaser provided to Variety, Rak’s new feature is set in an imaginary time that appears to blend present and past. “The 13th Dalai Lama has just died,” reads the provided synopsis, and “The armies of the terrible Warlord are at the gates.” The fate of Tibet seems sealed. “But a vision emerges from the waters of the Great Lake of Prophecies.

Does it point the way to the Dalai’s new reincarnation? Only he could save Tibet.” According to the director’s notes, the story is “about the voyage of a child who is searching for a lost spirituality, to save the adult world from alienation.” “The Little Prince of Shangri-La” involves the expedition of an ill-assorted team consisting of Alexandra, a very young French explorer, Aphur, a young warrior monk, and Kewstang, an elderly and very friendly Lama. “Will the trio be able to find the new 14th Dalai and save Tibet?,” the synopsis wonders.