Barcelona-born film director J. A. Bayona, who was behind movies such as The Orphanage (2007), The Impossible (2012), A Monster Calls (2016), and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) will be directing another movie inspired by a real-life catastrophe titled Society of the Snow.
The Netflix film will be based on the book La Sociedad de la Nieve by Uruguayan author and journalist Pablo Vierci. The book and the film will tell the factual story of the 1972 tragedy better known as "Miracle of the Andes" about Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571. The flight was carrying an entire rugby team and, traveling to Santiago, Chile, crashed on an Andes’ glacier on 13 October of that year. Out of the 45 passengers on board, only 29 survived the impact and found themselves in a dangerously inhospitable environment where they were pushed to resort to extreme measures in order to keep themselves alive. The story was previously portrayed in the 1993 film Alive directed by Frank Marshall.
The film will be Bayona’s return to Spanish-speaking filmmaking since The Orphanage in 2007. In his words:
“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.”
The screenplay for Society of the Snow was written by Bayona himself along with Bernat Vilaplana, Nicolás Casariego, and Jaime Marques. Confirmed members of the cast include Enzo Vogrincic Roldán, Matías Recalt, Tomas Wolf, Diego Ariel Vegezzi, Agustín Pardella, Francisco Romero, Rafael Federman, Felipe González Otaño, Esteban Kukuriczka, Agustín Della Corte, Valentino Alonso, Simón Hempe, Jerónimo Bosia, Fernando Contigiani García, and Benjamín Segura. Sandra Hermida and Belén Atienza are serving as producers.
The shooting will be taking place in Andalucía, Spain, Montevideo, Uruguay, and in specific locations throughout the Andes. Netflix has yet to release a premiere date for Society of the Snow.