MUMBAI: Principal photography has begun on six-time Academy Award nominee Peter Weir’s epic film, The Way Back.

The Way Back stars Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan, Colin Farrell. The film will be shot in India, Bulgaria and Morocco.

Spitfire Pictures is producing for parent company Exclusive Media Group (EMG), the filmed entertainment group combining Spitfire and London based Hammer Films, backed by strategic Investment Group, Cyrte Investments.

Exclusive Film Distribution is handling worldwide sales and distribution for the film.

The producers on the film are Peter Weir, Joni Levin, Duncan Henderson, Nigel Sinclair and Scott Rudin.

The Way Back is inspired by Slavomir Rawicz’s novel The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, as well as from other real life accounts, and chronicles the escape of a small group of multi-national prisoners from a Siberian gulag in 1940, and their epic journey over thousands of miles across five countries. It was introduced to Weir by Keith Clarke and Joni Levin. This will be his first film since the multiple Academy Award winning Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring Russell Crowe.