Quicksand: Carolina Gaitán, Allan Hawco star in survival thriller

Quicksand sequences were once so common in adventure films, generations of movie-watchers were taught they needed to be ever vigilant to make sure they wouldn’t step into a patch of the stuff. You don’t see quicksand on the screen very often these days, but director Andrés Beltrán (MalaYerba) and screenwriter Matt Pitts (Fringe) are trying to make up for that by bringing the world a new film that’s all about the dangerous, liquefied soil. The movie they’re making is even titled Quicksand.

Carolina Gaitán, who provided the voice of Pepa in Disney’s Encanto, and Allan Hawco of Jack Ryan star in Quicksand. According to Deadline, the English-language survival thriller – which has already been filming in the Colombian capital Bogota for over four weeks – will follow

a married couple on the brink of divorce who become trapped in quicksand while hiking through a Colombian rainforest. It’s a struggle for survival as they battle the elements of the jungle and must work together in order to escape.

Quicksand is being produced by Sangre Films, a joint venture between Elemental Stories, 222 Pictures, and Dawn’s Light Movies. The individual producers are Jason Cherubini of Dawn’s Light Media, Nicolas Reyes of Elemental Stories, and Sean Patrick Burke of 222 Pictures. Richard Switzer, Martin Ramos, John Harris, and Kris Meyer serve as executive producers.

Beltrán provided the following statement:

When I started reading Matt’s script I couldn’t stop. It’s such a thrilling and suspenseful story that hooked me immediately. Having Carolina and Allan playing our leading roles makes this a dream project.”

Cherubini added:

We are excited to be working with such great and talented people, many of whom have done amazing work in Spanish speaking productions and to now be able to bring their work to English speaking audiences. Working with the team in Colombia to bring this project to life has been informative and exciting, the process is moving along well.”

I look forward to seeing how Quicksand turns out; it will be interesting to see how Beltrán and Pitts manage to make the scenario of two people sinking into quicksand take up a substantial portion of a feature running time.