An upcoming Netflix movie will tell the harrowing story of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes Mountains
The flick centres on the real-life crash involving a Uruguayan rugby team.
A synopsis from Netflix explains: “On Oct. 13, 1972, a rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, boarded Flight 571 to Santiago, Chile, for a match. But on their way through the snowy Andes — just short of their destination — the plane crashed deep in the barren mountains, where temperatures can reach 40 degrees below zero.
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“Twelve people died on impact and several more were gravely injured. Only 29 lived to see a second day in the Andes. After multiple search-and-rescue planes combed the area, the search was called off and the passengers were presumed dead.
“After nearly two and a half months, 16 survivors were rescued. But what happened during those 72 days?”
The streaming giant warns that the film - titled Society of the Snow - is ‘not for the faint hearted’ as it contains ‘graphic depictions’ of the crash and the extreme lengths the survivors went through to avoid dying, including resorting to cannibalism.
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Survivor Robert Canessa, who is now in his 70s and a retired paediatric doctor, wrote about being forced to eat human flesh to survive in his book I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives.
Canessa, who was just 19 at the time, wrote: “We laid the thin strips of frozen flesh aside on a piece of sheet metal. Each of us finally consumed our piece when we could bear to.”
The true-life events in the movie were previously depicted in the 1993 flick, Alive - but the new adaptation is based upon the 2008 book La Sociedad de la Nieve (Society of the Snow) by author and journalist Pablo Vierci.
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Award-winning director J.A. Bayona, who previously directed the 2012 disaster movie The Impossible starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, says he spent more than a decade on the project.
Bayona told Netflix: “I discovered the book while we were preparing The Impossible, and I immediately thought that I wanted to make it into a film.
“We put the project together over a period of more than 10 years, developing an approach to the story while working closely with Pablo Vierci.”
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While making the film, Bayona and his team met with and talked to the survivors and the families of those who died in the crash.
"It has been a privilege to be able to talk to them,” he said.
Society of the Snow, which was filmed at the actual site of the crash, is set to have a limited cinema release this month before landing on Netflix on 4 January.
Topics: Netflix, TV and Film