In 1993, Frank Marshall released the film, Alive, which was based on the extraordinary true story of a Uruguayan rugby team battling for survival after their plane had crashed in the Andes. The movie starred Ethan Hawke, Vincent Spano, and Josh Hamilton. Now, J.A. Bayona, the director of The Impossible and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, brings us a new film based on the book Society of the Snow: The Definitive Account of the World’s Greatest Survival Story about the same events.
The official synopsis from Netflix reads,
“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.
Society of the Snow will have its World Premiere at Venice Film Festival as the closing night film on September 9, 2023 and follow in the Pearl’s section at San Sebastian Film Festival.“
The film stars an ensemble cast featuring 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.
Society of the Snow‘s screenplay was penned by J.A. Bayona, Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques, and Nicolás Casariego. It is based on the book by Pablo Vierci. Pablo Vierci will also be on board as associate producer, while the producers include Belén Atienza, Sandra Hermida, and J.A. Bayona. The score will be provided by Michael Giacchino.
Bayona has recently spoken with Deadline about the film. The director is touched by how deeply audiences have responded to it in the screenings they’ve had prior to its Venice debut, “What I love about the screenings we’ve had so far is that nobody stood up as soon as the story ended. We have a very long credit sequence — like, 13 minutes — and nobody stood up. All of them were in shock, which, by the way, is the kind of experience I was hoping for. It’s a difficult movie, but, at the end, it’s a most optimistic view of what human beings are at their core. It tells you, when we are taken away from everything that we have, what arises and what surfaces.”
Currently, besides the Venice Film Festival ceremony, the date of release on Netflix has yet to be announced.