The latest project from director J.A. Bayona – whose credits include The Orphanage, The Impossible, A Monster Calls, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – is the Spanish-language survival thriller Society of the Snow, or La sociedad de la nieve. An adaptation of the non-fiction book of the same name, written by Pablo Vierci, the film is about the Uruguayan rugby team which, en route to Chile in 1972, crash-landed on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. The survivors were forced to resort to extreme measures in order to stay alive. That is the same real-life event that director Frank Marshall brought to the screen with the 1993 film Alive, which was based on Piers Paul Read’s book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors. If you’re interested in seeing Bayona’s take on the story, you’ll be glad to hear that its release is just a few months away. Society of the Snow is set to reach the Netflix streaming service on January 4th.
Bayona wrote the screenplay for Society of the Snow with Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques, and Nicolás Casariego. Filming took place last year in Spain, Uruguay, and Chile, including on location in the El Valle de las Lágrimas, where the real events took place.
Here’s the full synopsis: In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which had been chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, crashed in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survived the accident. Trapped in one of the most hostile and inaccessible environments on the planet, they have to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.
The film stars Enzo Vogrincic, Agustín Pardella, Matías Recalt, Esteban Bigliardi, Diego Vegezzi, Fernando Contigiani García, Esteban Kukuriczka, Rafael Federman, Francisco Romero, Valentino Alonso, Tomás Wolf, Agustín Della Corte, Felipe Otaño, Andy Pruss, Blas Polidori, Felipe Ramusio, and Simón Hempe.
Bayona produced Society of the Snow with Belén Atienza and Sandra Hermida. Pablo Vierci served as associate producer.
Will you be watching Society of the Snow when it starts streaming on Netflix in January? Let us know by leaving a comment below.