David Farnor | On 25, Aug 2023

On October 13 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes. Only 29 of the 45 passengers survived the crash.

Now, The Orphanage and The Impossible director JA Bayona is retelling the true story in Society of the Snow. The film will close the Venice Film Festival and participate in the Perlas section of the San Sebastian Film Festival, before going on to stream on Netflix later this year.

The film stars Enzo Vogrincic, Matías Recalt, Agustín Pardella, Esteban Kukuriczka and Tomas Wolf. Here’s the trailer:

 

JA Bayona to direct Society of the Snow for Netflix

4th December 2021

JA Bayona is heading to Netflix to direct Society of the Snow.

The film is based on the book La Sociedad de La Nieve by Pablo Vierci. In 1972, the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile, catastrophically crashes on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. Only 29 of the 45 passengers survived the crash and finding themselves in one of the world’s toughest environments, they are forced to resort to extreme measures to stay alive.

Bayona (The Impossible, The Orphanage, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) will helm, and also co-write the film with Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques and Nicolás Casariego.

In front of the camera will be Enzo Vogrincic Roldán, Agustín Pardella, Matías Recalt, Tomas Wolf, Diego Ariel Vegezzi, Esteban Kukuriczka, Francisco Romero, Rafael Federman, Felipe González Otaño, Agustín Della Corte, Valentino Alonso, Simón Hempe, Fernando Contigiani García, Benjamín Segura, Luciano Chatton, Agustín Berruti, Juan Caruso, Rocco Posca, Andy Pruss, Esteban Bigliardi, Paula Baldini, Blas Polidori, Felipe Ramusio, Santiago Vaca Narvaja and Emanuel Parga.

The film is produced by Belén Atienza (The Impossible, The Orphanage) and Sandra Hermida (The Impossible, A Monster Calls).

Bayona says: “It was during the documentation process for The Impossible that I discovered Society of the Snow, Pablo Vierci’s fascinating chronicle about the tragedy of the Andes. More than ten years later, my fascination for the novel remains intact and I am happy to face the challenge that lies ahead: To tell one of the most remembered events of the 20th century, with all the complexity that implies a story that gives so much relevance to the survivors as well as to those who never returned from the mountains. I also face it in Spanish, a language that I excitedly return to after 14 years without filming in my own language, and with a team of young Uruguayan and Argentine actors, whom I’m totally thrilled with.”

Atienza and Hermida add: “After years of working on the project, we are very excited to start shooting Society of the Snow. We want to thank Netflix for their determined support of this project, which will be shot entirely in Spanish. We would also like to thank Cetursa Sierra Nevada for their involvement in allowing us to film at the ski resort during the Winter season and especially the survivors and families of those who died in the Andes tragedy for their enormous generosity in sharing their story with us.”

Filming will take place in Sierra Nevada (Spain), Montevideo (Uruguay) and in the Andes (both in Chile and Argentina) including El Valle de las Lágrimas, the real location where the story happened.

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