NEWPORT-born film director Peter Greenaway, pictured, visited the International Film School Wales (IFSW) in Newport to explain his latest movie project and invited students to take part in creating it.

The Tulse Luper Suitcases is currently in production in Luxembourg.

This fictional tale recounts the life of Welsh-born Tulse Luper, a "professional prisoner" through the evidence discovered in 92 suitcases found around the world between 1928 and 1989.

In addition to a trilogy of 120-minute films the story will be told in books, CD-ROMs and 92 DVDs.

The students at IFSW have been invited to create one of these DVDs.

It will feature 92 love letters written by Luper's father to his mother while he was fighting in the First World War.

The task will be co-ordinated by IFSW graduate Christophe Istace through his Cardiff-based production company, Three Second Films.

Mr Greenaway lived just off Newport's Corporation Road.

Although his family moved to Essex when he was young, he revisited his native city throughout his adolescence.

The director is a patron of IFSW and it was his Newport roots which made him decide to involve the students in his film.

Daniel Cook, a second-year film and video undergraduate, said: "This is a very avante garde project and very brave thing to attempt.

"It looks like being a good learning experience, and I definitely want to take part."

Fellow student Ian Matthews said: "The interesting thing about this project is that it's not just a film, it's a DVD collection, a website and a whole multimedia experience.

"It also has the serious thought behind it that an ambitious project like this needs."

Mr Greenaway originally trained as a painter and his movies, which include The Draughtsman's Contract, Drowning by Numbers, and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, all display a very distinctive, painterly style.

His role models are the greats of European cinema, including Antonioni, Bergman, Godard and Pasolini.

Explaining the thinking behind the Tulse Luper Suitcases, Mr Greenaway said, "A suitcase is a useful metaphor for a world where most people seem to be on the move.

"There has been a powerful and voluntary movement of people over the last 20 years, and we're all carrying our little suitcases with us, not necessarily full of clean pyjamas and toothpaste but with memories and ambitions and secrets.

"I've invented 92 of these suitcases - 92 being the atomic number of uranium, which has created 20th century history.

"The film starts in 1928 when uranium was discovered in Colorado and it goes on to 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down and there was a brief hiatus with the end of the Cold War.

The director admitted that the film contains a number of autobiographical issues.