Where will ‘The Snow Society’, the Spanish film that will represent Spain at the Oscars, be released?

‘The Snow Society’, the new film by JA Bayona

16 years. That is the time that has passed since The Orphanage, the last film shot in Spanish by Juan Antonio Bayona, one of the great filmmakers that our country has produced in this century and certainly one of those who have worked the most abroad. After films like The Impossible, A Monster Comes to See Me or his adventures in big franchises like Jurassic Park (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) or The Lord of the Rings (The Rings of Power), Bayona returns to a film in his native language , and with a story that will also be familiar to many, since it is based on a tragic true story of which there was already a film adaptation.

The snow society is based on the tragedy of the Andes, an accident that occurred in 1972, when Flight 571 of the Uruguayan Air Force crashed into the Andes mountain range, leaving a large part of the surviving crew at the mercy of the inclement weather conditions. The aircraft carried more than 45 passengers, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby team, of whom only 16 people ended up surviving. This story will be familiar to many because a film was made called ¡Viven!, which collected this story and in turn adapted the novel of the same name by Piers Paul Read. But The Snow Society adapts a different book, based on the same events but from a quite different perspective.

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Specifically, it is based on the book that gives the film its title, The Snow Society, written by a colleague of Piers Paul Read, Pablo Vierci, who several years after what happened interviewed the 16 survivors again and had them relive their story. experience, already with a certain distance in time that would provide greater clarity in their memories and reflections. Vierci himself took the documentary Castaways as reference material. I come from a plane that fell in the mountains, in which Gonzalo Arijona and Virginia Martínez were already interviewing the survivors of the disaster. With the presence of Vierci himself on filming, Bayona moved to the Sierra Nevada to make it its own Andes mountain range, and added to a most credible reconstruction of the Fairchild FH-227D plane, they managed to emulate the tragedy that occurred to a large extent. in 1972.

Perhaps because of all these things that we tell, added to the international prestige of Bayonne, The Snow Society has been chosen to represent Spain in the next edition of the Oscars. This does not guarantee its nomination, nor even that it enters the famous shortlist that will be announced on December 21, before the 5 nominees for Best International Film that will be at the Oscar gala on the 10th are confirmed on January 23. March 2024.

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That is to say, The Snow Society still has several obstacles to overcome before reaching the final stretch and aspiring to become the fifth film to win the award after Starting Over, Belle Époque, All About My Mother and The Sea Inside. While waiting to know if there is finally luck and we can aspire to a new statuette, the film can be enjoyed all over the world and have a great international projection, since it will be released and distributed by Netflix. The platform has not yet confirmed the official release date, but judging by its more than likely entry into the shortlist and added to its preview at the Venice Film Festival, where it was chosen as the closing film, the film could arrive at the end of year to Netflix.

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