few days before Society of the Snow closed the Venice Film Festival in September, a private screening was held in Uruguay. Tears, hugs, thunderous applause… the response was overwhelming. ‘It's one of those moments that you realise the power of film, because for the first time, the families of both sides gathered together,’ says director J.A. Bayona. ‘The first time in 50 years.’ By ‘sides’ he means those who survived and those who didn't. For Society of the Snow tells of the infamous Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crash-landed in the Andes mountains on 13 October 1972.
Of the 45 passengers and crew on board, 33 survived. After 72 horrifying days, during which those left were forced to eat the remains of their dead companions, 16 were rescued.
Taking on the story that became known as the Miracle of the Andes, it's no surprise, then, that Bayona's film caused an outpouring of emotion. ‘I got messages from the survivors – for [it was] the first is sitting with Bayona in Venice's Excelsior hotel, his room overlooking the tranquil Adriatic Sea, a scene that is far from the nerve-shredding events of He may not have lived with this story as long as those involved, but the Spanish filmmaker, who brought us fictional horrors in , has dreamt of bringing this to the screen for almost his entire career.
