Society of the Snow-Cedar Herald Index

Society of the Snow () is a 2023 survival thriller film directed by J. A. Bayona about the Uruguayan 1972 Andes flight disaster. It is an adaptation of Pablo Vierci's book of the same name, which documents accounts of all 16 survivors of the crash, many of whom Vierci knew from childhood. The cast is composed of Uruguayan and Argentine actors, most of whom are newcomers.

The film closed the 80th Venice International Film Festival, in an Out of Competition slot. It is scheduled to be released theatrically on 15 December 2023 before streaming on Netflix on 4 January 2024. It was selected as the Spanish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards.

Society of the Snow

Cast

The cast is as follows:

Society of the Snow

Production

Bayona discovered Vierci's book while researching for his 2012 film The Impossible, and bought the rights for the book at the end of shooting The Impossible. The filmmakers recorded more than 100 hours of interviews with all of the living survivors. The actors had contact with the survivors and the families of the victims. Society of the Snow was announced in November 2021. Filming took place in Sierra Nevada, Spain; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Chile and Argentina in the Andes, including the actual crash site. The production had 138 shooting days. Its budget was reported to be more than €65 million.

Society of the Snow

In August 2021, a second unit, headed by , Argentine director of Murder Me, Monster, filmed landscapes in Chile for reference in on-set virtual production and post-production. Principal photography took place in Sierra Nevada from 10 January to 29 April 2022. In Sierra Nevada, the production was challenged by a scarcity of snow and the Saharan Air Layer, which covered the mountains in orange. Three replicas of fuselage wreckages were used: one was placed in a hangar built in a parking lot, another buried in artificial snow and supported by a hydraulic crane that allowed moving the fuselage, and the other above a tarn at high. In the hangar, a 30-metre-tall screen displayed the second unit's footage of the Andes. A third unit was tasked with more dangerous mountain shots. The three units consisted of around 300 workers. Filming in Uruguay concluded in late July 2022, and the production continued in Madrid.

David Martí and Montse Ribé, Academy Award–winning special effects makeup artists of Pan's Labyrinth, created prosthetic corpses and wounds. Post-production was planned to last about five months involving 300 personnel. Vierci, who serves as an associate producer, visited the set in Sierra Nevada.

Bayona showed an early version of the film to one of the survivors, José Luis "Coche" Inciarte, before he died in July 2023. The 14 remaining survivors saw the film one or two months prior to the premiere.

Release

The film was set as the 80th Venice International Film Festival's closing film, with a world premiere out-of-competition screening at the Palazzo del Cinema slated for 9 September 2023, following the festival's awards ceremony. It was selected to screen in the Perlak section at the 71st San Sebastián International Film Festival in September 2023. It also screened in the Out of Competition section at the 56th Sitges Film Festival, and at the 2023 AFI Fest.

The film was programmed for a technical screening run from 20 to 26 October 2023 in the Cine Aragonia of Zaragoza. A Spanish theatrical release for 15 December 2023 was also announced.

Reception

Guy Lodge of Variety deemed the film to be a "brawnily effective tear-jerker", "which grips with alternating waves of dread, horror and heart-swelling relief, even as it can hardly surprise".

Wendy Ide of ScreenDaily wrote that the film "is elevated by bracingly muscular action sequences".

Pete Hammond of Deadline wrote that Bayona made a "story of how humanity comes together for each other in the worst of circumstances, how faith can see us through, and the sheer will to live involved in just simply pulling off a miracle by never giving up".

David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Bayona reclaims "the real-life tragedy and story of human resilience" "with authenticity and chilling realism, with emotion but without sensationalism", underscoring the film to be "uneven but ultimately effective".