The Circle of Snows, an anthropophagic tragedy of the Andes which fascinated the world

50 years ago a young rugby team from Uruguay disappeared above the Andes before reappearing decimated two months later. A new film on this incredible epic pays tribute to the 16 survivors but also, a new development, to the 29 who disappeared. On the evening of October 13, 1972, a military plane chartered to bring an amateur rugby team from Montevideo and a few relatives to Santiago, Chile, disappeared from radar. Caught in fog and air gaps, their aircraft crashed on a snow platform at an altitude of more than 3,500 meters.

Also read: 50 years since the crash of the Andes: the first night was “the most terrible”, says one of the survivors of the “Miracle of the Andes”

Of the 45 passengers, most of whom were under 20 years old, 12 died in the shock, while 17 others succumbed in the days and weeks that followed to their injuries, to the extreme cold or buried under an avalanche. At the end of a heroic odyssey and after the search was abandoned, two of them managed to reach Chile. Their comrades will be rescued after having endured 72 days in the cold, forced to eat the flesh of the deceased to survive.

This moving story has already been the subject of two feature films, one Mexican Surviver (1976) by René Cardona, the other American Survivors (1993) by Frank Marshall with Ethan Hawke. Both stories focus primarily on the incredible feat of the survivors.

But, according to Uruguayan writer Pablo Verci, associate producer of Cercle des Neiges, by Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona, “the story had to be told as a whole”. “We tended to focus on the survivors because what they had accomplished was so enormous, so epic, that the other 29 were left in the shadows,” notes the man who was a school friend and neighbor of many of those on the fatal flight.

The survivors were "thanks to the fact that there were deaths", he underlines, specifying that the film "mentions them by name, evokes their death, gives an overview of their personal history". The survivors, but also the families of the deceased, also collaborated on the film which is inspired by the book on the tragedy written by Mr. Verci and whose title La sociedad de la nieve is used for this feature film in Spanish.

The “mutual support pact” sealed between the survivors in the immensity of the Andes moved Bayona, says Pablo Verci, specifying that the filmmaker read his book during the filming of The Impossible in 2011. It is neither a disaster film , neither an adventure film nor a thriller, assures Mr. Verci, 73 years old. “It’s an inspiring emotional experience, on the verge between life and death, and yet full of hope,” he assures. “People will realize what we went through,” his friend Daniel Fernandez Strauch, a 77-year-old retired agronomist, told AFP, who was 26 when he found himself trapped in the middle. mountains with his comrades. “Even the feeling of cold comes over you. It’s totally realistic,” he adds, emphasizing Bayona’s obsession with detail.

The film, which received a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival, won an award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and was chosen to represent Spain at the next Oscars, will be released on Netflix on January 4.