Cloud Atlas is certainly an unusual movie, with three directors helming two separate units, telling six tales using the same actors in each, although the stars could be playing different races and genders in each story. To celebrate production ending on the movie, Empire has debuted a behind-the-scenes photo from the shoot, which you can see above.

In the centre of the shot are directors Tom Twyker, Lana Wachowsi and Andy Wachowski, while David Mitchell, who wrote the book the film is based on, is sat towards the back. The other guys are Cloud Atlas’ producers. Interestingly, it’s believed this is the first official image released of Lana Wachowski since she started living full-time as a woman. Although a few other shots of the notoriously publicity shy Wachowskis have surfaced in the last couple of years, this is the first official one.

Here’s a synopsis of the complex but intriguing film: ‘A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilization — the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.’

Cloud Atlas stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Bae Doona and should hit cinemas towards the end of 2012.

General movie news courtesy of Movie Muser