New Netflix film tells story of one of the most harrowing plane crashes in history

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.

Netflix

“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.

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.

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.

Netflix

“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.”

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.