Himalaya: Caravan () is a 1999 Nepali film directed by Éric Valli and was funded through based in France corporations. It was the first Nepalese film to be nominated in the Best Foreign Film category at the 72nd Academy Awards. The film is a narrative on both the traditions and the impermanent nature of human struggle to retain and express power in the face of the gods. "The gods' triumph" is the call that echoes at the end of the film and expresses the balancing of karmic destinies. The extreme environment of the Himalayas is magnificently contrasted to the delicacy of humanity and the beauty of Tibetan culture. The film depicts not only the life style of the upper Dolpo people of the mid western uphills of Nepal but also their traditional customs, for example celestial burial. Himalaya was shot in widescreen over nine months on location in a region that can only be reached on foot, with all but two characters played by real chiefs, lamas and local villagers. Director Éric Valli has lived in Nepal since 1983 and is also a photographer and author. His work is regularly published in National Geographic Magazine , GEO magazine and Life magazines. Plot Himalaya is a story set against the backdrop of the Nepalese Himalayas. At an altitude of five thousand metres in the remote mountain region of Dolpa, Himalaya is the story of villagers who take a caravan of yaks across the mountains, carrying rock salt from the high plateau down to the lowlands to trade for grain. At the beginning of the film, Lhakpa, the heir to the chieftainship of the tribe is revealed to have died in a botched attempt to navigate a shortcut. An annual event, the caravan provides the grain that the villagers depend on to survive the winter. The film unfolds as a story of rivalry based on misunderstanding and distrust, between the aging chief, Tinle, and the young daring herdsman, Karma, who is both a friend and a rival to the chief's family, as they struggle for leadership of the caravan. The elders of the tribe assert that Karma should lead the caravan in the absence of Lhakpa, but Tinle objects and insists that someone else should lead the caravan. Karma, seeking to prove himself as a worthy leader, departs a few days before the scheduled departure of the caravan, leaving behind only the